Tuesday, September 28, 2010

1432 - Bummer Summer


This is the kind of film that could have been so damn terrible. I'll give you the set up - it's shot on a digital SLR in black and white. Save at the end, the camera stays still inside of it's scenes, not even rack-focusing (which drove me a little nuts at times) when it's characters move in and out of focus. And it's improvised using completely unknown newcomers.
Recipe for disaster, isn't it?
It works. Sadly, I went from being absolutely in love with this film half-way through to really liking it by the end. It loses just a tad of momentum, but the characters feel so natural and real and you care about what they're going through, even if it's minor and subtle. Each shot in this film feels like a beautiful photograph and what we're seeing is the story of that photograph. It's not pretentious at all, though it sounds like it very well could be. If you like coming of age stories and don't mind something bordering on experimental I think that this is the film for you.

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