Showing posts with label Sundance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sundance. Show all posts

4/15/2013

"Primer" by Shane Carruth (2004)


A low-budget science-fiction original movie that tells the story of a group of friends who are carrying out several engineering Physics experiments in a garage and discover, by accident, time travel.

The director and main actor is Shane Carruth, an ex-engineer who also wrote the script, and made the music! His family and friends make most of the cast, too!

Carruth is a scientist by formation. Therefore, all the part of the story related to the experimentation and discussions taken part in the garage are truly believable as they have all the technical jargon that you expect from real physicists. If time-travel was discovered would be, we can guess, in a similar way to the one portrayed in the movie.

The use of the camera and the amateurish acting (really pedestrian in the case of Carruth) help the story to be credible, down to earth and realistic. As if somebody was filming the meetings and wanderings of the characters with a video-camera. Something very close to reality to what went on in Carruth's house when he was preparing and shooting the movie.


The movie is definitely original, believable and refreshing, and incredibly good-looking for the low budget. A good suit and a tie always work on camera! The 1990s mood and style are very good. The mobiles and the computers range between the mid 1980s and mid 1990s, and the laptop in the movie is very similar to my first (and now ancient MS2) Toshiba.

The first and main problem of the movie, to me, is not the jargon, but the fact that the dialogues are crowded, words colliding atomically against others at the speed of light. Moreover, the diction of the actors, especially of the two main characters, is really bad, a fact that is highlighted by the poor quality of the sound. Secondly, there are gaps and blurs not well explained in the script, or perhaps are just the result of a poor editing. In general, the movie is a bit thick
and confusing.

The movie won the Prize of the Jury and the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at Sundance 2004, but I do not  think the first one was deserved - my opinion.

The first time I wrote about this movie, I ended saying:
Carruth is somebody to watch in the future and has brilliant ideas. Hopefully, he will have enough budget next time, and will have learnt better film-making skills, so he can make a great film that is not just for scientists doing a Ph.D. and without having to sacrifice any depth. That's possible. You need to learn film-making, not just produce your own brilliant ideas.
Well, he has proven to continue to showcase his talent, and wrote the scripts for two other science-fiction movies: the critically well-received "Looper" and for the just released and winner of the Special Prize of the Jury at Sundance 2013, "Upstream Colour".

4/07/2013

"Dopamine" by Marc Decena (2003)


Dopamine is an original independent post-modern love story that reflects on traditional/modern views on love in our contemporary world, and on the difficulties of human connection in a world that is every day more virtual.

The main characters are Rand -a computer animator working on a project of a virtual pet- and Sarah -a schoolteacher-, who are convincingly played by John Livingston and Sabrina Lloyd. They really have great chemistry on camera.

Sarah believes in love, from heart to heart, and in a committed relationship. Rand, is very influenced by his father's teachings on human biology and chemistry, according to which most human emotions -love included- are just the result of biochemical reactions in our body. Love, in that regard, is directly connected to a high production of Dopamine in the brain. However, Sarah is rough, edgy, and unpredictable, while Rand is a sweet sensitive guy.


+ The good things about the movie are:
+ The story is very engaging and believable.
+ The acting is good and the main actors have chemistry.
+ The characters are all well-drawn and grounded - believable.
+ The dialogues are great, fresh and thought-provoking.
+ The story is never straightforward or simplistic, and shows the difficulties surrounding men-women relationships from a new perspective.

However,
- The pace of the movie is too slow.
- The music is forgettable. I don't even remember it!
- The colours, cinematography and texture of the film used for the movie are not visually engaging or attractive, which is a pity as the movie was shot in the colourful bright San Francisco.
- The ending is predictable.

The movie won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, and it is not your usual love story. It is not a proper chick flick, or perhaps it is a chick flick for chicks that aren't your average romantic chick.