Quiet City

First of all I should state that this is not the first independent film I've seen. I have nothing against independent films in general. On the contrary I have seen many independent films that I would highly recommend. Unfortunately this was not one of them. I suppose I can appreciate the film's artistic quality. It is about as true a "day-in-the-life-of-the-average-person" story as you'll find. The dialog seems almost unscripted. The conversations in the film are light and pointless, to the point of being somewhat awkward, which is exactly what one would expect from the typical interaction amongst American adolescents of today. I suppose it's possible that I am missing the boat here but by the end of the film I failed to see how I didn't just waste 78 minutes of my life as I watched in sheer boredom two fictitious characters waste 78 minutes of theirs. Maybe I'm alone here but when I sit down for a movie I do so with the expectation to be inspired or entertained. At the very least I expect my mind to be stimulated in some way. This movie did none of those things for me.

'Quiet City' opens with Jamie, an attractive young woman from Atlanta, arriving in New York to visit an unreliable girlfriend, who fails to show up at the diner where they had arranged to meet. A random stranger, Charlie, is asked for directions, and he subsequently offers to let her stay at his scruffy apartment. The camera follows the pair throughout the next day while they try to contact Jamie's pal, take a walk in the park, visit a friend of Charlie's to retrieve a hat, go to a gallery opening and then on to a party.

The film's minimalist plot is thematically similar to Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise", but its production values are far more basic and it lacks the mythic element. The two protagonists are neither as articulate nor charismatic as Linklater's Viennese lovers, and their relationship is considerately less intense. However it becomes fascinating to observe a friendship develop through commonplace activities and banal conversation. Much of the film's success is due to Erin Fisher's easygoing Southern charm as Jamie - her beautiful eyes and enigmatic amused smile gradually dismantle Charlie's slacker exterior to expose a person worthy of her affection. If anybody cares to give an even break to a film lacking conventional dramatic elements, it could provide some subtle pleasures.

This film is one of the most beautiful and poignant that I've ever seen. I'm 23, and to finally see a film that accurately portrays the conversation, fears and apathy of 21st century post-uni lifestyle is absolutely liberating. There's a great essay with the DVD which points to Tzu and Cassavettes (sic.) as pioneers in this genre and influences which I'm sure are fair and true but it's not the cine-literate side of this film I love. It's the human side. The side where a simple silly dance between 4 people in a room is an expression of utter freedom. The side where a mere high five is f****** monumental. Conversations with strangers that go nowhere and do nothing and all the while the city is peaceful and contemplative. The trains keep going, the traffic lights keep changing.

Take a chance on this movie if your eyes and ears are open to a different perspective on twenty something life.

I might not be an aficionado of the "mumblecore"-genre, and this film didn't make me one either. But it did give me a minor crush on the female lead (and writer) Erin Fisher, maybe that's a good thing.

So in this film we see a cute girl from Atlanta (Erin Fisher) who visits New York, can't get hold of her friend, and then instead hangs out over 24 hours with a random slacker (Cris Lankenau) she meets at the subway station in Brooklyn.

It's cute, and you do get to feel that the boy and girl are connecting over an intense period, but it didn't really made an impression on me. Maybe it wasn't dramatic enough, maybe the realism bored me, maybe the long shots were a bit too long, or maybe it was the "American" dialogue.

What I mean by that is that they use all of these "pause words" a lot. I even spent a few minutes counting them (by opening the subtitles in Word): "like" (229 times), "you know" (28 times), "kind of" (39 times), "sort of" (22 times), "uh" or "um" (43 times), "I don't know" (22 times) and "really" (55 times).

It isn't that much dialogue in the movie, so that is a LOT of pause words, all of which are basically unnecessary for saying something. (Sarah Hellman's two-minute random monologue might have accounted for half of the "like"-quota, for instance. How ditzy is it possible to come across as?)

Even if this is how Americans actually talk, for us europeans it sounds like they have no vocabulary and are very slow thinkers who need to insert a lot of "pause words" just to get through a sentence.

"Mumblecore" might be supposed to be ultra realistic, but I am pretty sure it could benefit such movies to tighten up the script, thereby making it more interesting and transcend boring reality just a little bit.

Finally I have to make the obligatory reference to "Before Sunrise" and say that it's unfortunately much more interesting, substantial and memorable than "Quiet City", even if the two movies are a bit different in style and shape.

I realise this review will blow all my chances of ever getting to flirt with Erin Fisher (and Sarah Hellman), but it's mostly meant as a warning for people who are interested in "real" movies, and also as a message to the director Aaron Katz.

A movie like this would have been much more interesting if the dialogue was better and more meaningful, and if it just had more of a "real" movie-feel about it. Right now it seems like something anyone could improvise over two days. And that's unfortunately not a compliment.

But of course I would rather have a thousand indie-movies like these instead of the usual predictable Hollywood-crap. I only wish they could be better than this.

Katz's third feature is a rather sweet offering about a boy and girl who meet accidentally and form a close friendship over the space of a weekend. It's best viewed without too many expectations - the rough cinematography and absence of plot will disappoint some film-goers, however both the characters and the performances are convincing and endearing, and the mood is suitably quirky throughout.

Yes, the movie is somewhat self-indulgent; some scenes would have benefited from a trimming-down, yet the narrative flow is unhindered by the slower pace. Although Katz doesn't emerge from 'Quiet City' as a director with an agenda, after his tedious comment on teenage rape, 'Dance Party USA', it's perhaps for the best that he sticks to observational film-making, and leaves social commentary well alone.