MadS: A teenager stops off to see his dealer to test a new drug before heading off for a night of partying. On the way home, he picks up an injured woman and the night takes a surreal turn.

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Introduction

MadS is probably one of the most innovative indie films I’ve ever watched. If you think about a film being taken in one shot, no cuts whatsoever, its impossible. Here are some notable one shot scenes from the top of my head:

• The Bunker scene from 1917
• The boxing match from Creed (really love that one)
• The rescue scene from Children of Men, starring Clive Owen.
• There’s also a great fight scene in Atomic Blonde
• John Wick 4, the overhead corridor gunfight scene.

From memory, I could only think of two films that made a one-shot film, Russian Ark and Boiling Point. Now adding MadS to the list. Helmed by cinematographer Philip Lozano, for the impressive one-shot take of MadS. Directed by David Moreau.

Eighteen-year-old Romain has just graduated and makes a stop at his dealer’s place to try a new pill. As he heads off to a party, he sees an injured woman on the side of the road and decides to help her, but when she gets in his car, she suddenly smashes her own head against the dashboard, bleeding out until she dies.

Characters

I’m not too much into French films hence my ignorance as to who the casts in the film are, nonetheless all of them were great and was able to project that terror and realism with what they were experiencing.

The twitching and spazzing of the infected characters were scary, it felt too real.

The way they stare at the lights as if its their first time seeing one, they look so mesmerized by it, it was great.

Huge applause for the cast for their dedication and trust to the director and cinematographer. I couldn’g even fathom what they had to go through to get that one-shot flawless take.

Banger music

From the first scene alone, the soundtrack was a banger. Even though I don’t understand French, I love the music. Throughout the whole film, the music added more depth to its scenes.

When the characters were spazzing out and twitching, seeing and hearing things, you’d notice the music/sounds were muffled and sometimes would go completely silent, the film would let you hear what the infected character was hearing.

Innovative cinematography

Like I said in the introduction, MadS is by far the most innovative film I’ve watched recently. The film was actually shot 5 times, the fifth take was the one that was released.

In an interview, director Moreau states:
“I needed this movie to be as truthful and as honest as possible,” he says. “So when I had this idea of making a oner — it has to be one take. So we shot five days and we had five takes. The first day was a disaster. The second day was a disaster. And the three last days were actually the movie from the beginning to the end. The movie you saw is the last take we did on Friday. I have the GoPro tapes [from the cameras] we put on some of the crew members that actually can prove that we made it in one take. Moviemaking is not like a contest — it’s just, I wanted this to be real and true. So we had to do it in only one take.”

I couldn’t even begin to imagine the dedication and trust that it took for the cast and camera crew to pull it off.

Storytelling

Because MadS is one-shot all the way, there are some down times and got a bit boring, waiting for things to happen. Though those down times would lead to something, it hard to keep it up all the way, specially if we only have one angle to work with. At the same time (I’m countering myself here) it introduces a sense of realism, and gives it a more scary element.

What I didn’t like

Because we only had one angle to view things, it was hard to get emotionally invested to a character, I guess with Romain only because we had him the longest.

Conclusion

MadS was an experience, it felt like a found-footage film yet its not a POV kind, we get to see everything from one camera angle, and everytime they shift to another character, we get to see and feel their experience. MadS was very immersive in a sense that it keeps you on the edge and the realism was there. Great film and highly recommended.