This horror trilogy was an artist’s attempt to overcome grief

When the Hungarian musician VÍZ, also known as Réka Csiszér, lost her father to cancer, she struggled to come to terms with her grief. In her search for strength, she eventually forged a requiem in his honour: a three-part horror film called Veils.

A collaboration with Italian filmmaker Radiana Basso, Veils explores the physical and the psychological aspects of fear, grief, and rebirth. A visual pair to VÍZ’s dark ambient, experimental new-edge music, the trilogy follows the artist as she processes her sorrow following the death of her father.

In a surreal manner, in addition to playing herself, the musician also impersonates other characters in the videos. In part one, which is the only episode shot in black-and-white, she appears as her grandmother, who has a prophetic dream. In part two, she personifies both the host body and the illness, in her father’s battle against cancer. Finally, in part three, VÍZ appears hand in hand with a man symbolising her grief.

“In the horror genre, characters have a certain freedom to live out their insanity and go to extremes,” VÍZ explains her choice of genre. Amidst sources of inspiration for the video, VÍZ cites the Chilean-French filmmaker and artist Alejandro Jodorowski’s therapy form Psychomagia, which served as an example of “a very playful attempt to heal trauma, blending psychology and spirituality in a theatrical way.”

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