Zero Day

Saw this movie at the Rotterdam IFF. You may question some decisions of the maker - like choosing a mockumentary form for such a sensitive and horrible subject - but this movie sure hits you in the gut. Especially the last scenes were almost painful to watch. Hope it gets the distribution it deserves.

I just came back from the Montreal premiere of Zero Day...and i'm surprised as hell to find a negative comment on the movie. Basically the blame is about Coccio doing an easy and overplayed social message...well, Mr-I'm-a-reviewer, it's an easy and overplayed critic of movies with a social charge.

Not that I want to expose my life here, but I come from a small town with a similar school than these guys go. Reject & ignorance on the menu. Thing is...I understand how can young kids can be driven to do such horror. High schools have became battle fields of conformity. It's a real ugly sight. You need to fight your way into being like the others. It's hard to explain, bit a lot of people dosen't realize that high schools are becoming cemeteries of human intelligence. Meanwhile, parents are closing their eyes and smiling about how their life in their comfortable suburb is perfect.

The real motive of the movie isn't about what is driving them. It's about this death-like calm suburb and everybody closing their eyes and trying to create this atmosphere of a perfect town. Cal expressed it well. It's a wake up call. Drama is everywhere and it can take every shape. In that case little dramas(like Andre being called a faggot for wearing a J.C Penny shirt) are shaping into being the worse nightmare of a whole town. Andre & Cal took the most extreme way to express their pain. The malaise of unconformity in an era where you need more than ever to be like the others to be accepted.

I like particularly the last scenes where some guys are burning the crosses of Andre & Cal, like if with the pain they communicated, Cal & Andre have communicated their blind rage to their community, their refusal to think about the causes of some acts.

It might seemed aggressive as a movie, but Coccio is meditating more than whining or enunciating. What Andre & Cal are living is a reality...and a scary one that might get to other kids.

Disturbing movie...Home making and strong feeling made Ben Coccio do a very very disturbing movie.

I agree with a lot of what is said in this movie about people blaming the media for molding them into who they are. Also, they took a rather taboo topic and did a very good job documenting what 'could' have happened.

I watch a lot of movies, many of them random movies that I end up wanting hours of my life back for, this was not a movie that I regret seeing and believe me, I don't use those words lightly.

I will give this movie an 8 out of 10, only because it takes an issue that is generally considered to be absolutely horrific and puts a human face to it. While I don't endorse any behavior like this, or the actions perpetrated in the film (and it is not the director's intent to glorify it in any way), the point of view offered reminds us that the perpetrators of these acts are still human. It's a very rare talent for a director to be able to make you feel for the characters, even though you know they will carry out a horrific task later. That's what makes this movie so genuinely different from the likes of "Bowling for Columbine" or other documentaries about school shootings. This movie doesn't try to make you understand, it doesn't try to explain the reasons. It simply wants to remind you that they were human as well. Despite how our culture has come to hating criminals and becoming detached because we see them constantly on the news. Sometimes we need to be reminded of that, before we lose our humanity as well.

Zero Day leads you to think, even re-think why two boys/young men would do what they did - commit mutual suicide via slaughtering their classmates. It captures what must be beyond a bizarre mode of being for two humans who have decided to withdraw from common civility in order to define their own/mutual world via coupled destruction.

It is not a perfect movie but given what money/time the filmmaker and actors had - it is a remarkable product. In terms of explaining the motives and actions of the two young suicide/murderers it is better than 'Elephant' - in terms of being a film that gets under our 'rationalistic' skin it is a far, far better film than almost anything you are likely to see.

Flawed but honest with a terrible honesty.