Didn’t really know what to expect going in, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t what I got.
Set in a world teetering on dystopia (let’s say it’ll be a full dystopia in about 5 more years), it is really a series of short films — sort of connected, sort of not — that each explore a different (though it might have been helpful if they were more different) aspect of the fatalistic reality of the setting, sometimes including O Henry-style plot denouements and other times abruptly ending at a character’s low point.
It looks quite good in that it’s filmed well and the set design appropriately atmospheric, and the performances are pretty uniformly excellent (particularly Kate Dickie). The script isn’t bad, at least within each story, but the problem is that the stories themselves don’t really connect up to say anything more than ‘life in a dystopia sure is pretty messed up, isn’t it?’ a bunch of different times, which is kinda just there in the definition, no?
Also, while I don’t conceptually mind the idea of using jaunty, mid 70s-influenced, electronic score, this jaunty, mid 70s-influenced, electronic score is both too invasive (and loud in the mix) and too derivative, with sections that sound like they could be a royalty-free of Jean Michel Jarre’s ‘Oxygene’ (and not in a good way).
Ultimately, another film that seems to me to be the victim of being rather less than the sum of its parts.
Didn’t really know what to expect going in, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t what I got.
Set in a world teetering on dystopia (let’s say it’ll be a full dystopia in about 5 more years), it is really a series of short films — sort of connected, sort of not — that each explore a different (though it might have been helpful if they were more different) aspect of the fatalistic reality of the setting, sometimes including O Henry-style plot denouements and other times abruptly ending at a character’s low point.
It looks quite good in that it’s filmed well and the set design appropriately atmospheric, and the performances are pretty uniformly excellent (particularly Kate Dickie). The script isn’t bad, at least within each story, but the problem is that the stories themselves don’t really connect up to say anything more than ‘life in a dystopia sure is pretty messed up, isn’t it?’ a bunch of different times, which is kinda just there in the definition, no?
Also, while I don’t conceptually mind the idea of using jaunty, mid 70s-influenced, electronic score, this jaunty, mid 70s-influenced, electronic score is both too invasive (and loud in the mix) and too derivative, with sections that sound like they could be a royalty-free of Jean Michel Jarre’s ‘Oxygene’ (and not in a good way).
Ultimately, another film that seems to me to be the victim of being rather less than the sum of its parts.
