Marathon

"Marathon" has a very interesting premise, excellent ambient sounds, and good scenery. Unfortunately, the movie, aside from these aspects, falls flat on its face. For a woman trying to complete so many crossword puzzles in a day, she spends an awful lot of time standing around, sulking, and not doing puzzles. I believe there is more walking shown in the movie than her work on these puzzles. Also, while I understand the point of showing so much scenery, there is simply FAR too much of it. The movie is incredibly boring and unfocused. It's not worth buying, renting, watching on television, or viewing in any conceivable way. I lost interest so quickly that I'm not sure why I sat through the entire film in the first place.

think of the most un-film-worthy subject you can and this is 10 times worse. A woman needs to complete as many crosswords as she can in a day. We don't even get to see the questions and think of the words on our own, we just watch her struggle. The woman seems so anxious and in a hurry to do the crosswords, but for some reason she spends the time distractedly walking all around the city when she could be focused at home. The acting is horrible, the actress huffs and puffs as she tried to think of the words, and we are left completely in the dark. The New York scenery is nice but the movie relies on it too much and it gets old fast. The movie plays like a rejected NYU student film. This film has no redeeming qualities and I do not recommend it to anyone, ever.

Marathon at first seems like the portrait of a woman with too much time on her hands, trying to complete a certain number of crossword puzzles in 24 hours, while riding subways in New York. But we are soon drawn in as we try to understand what drives the heroine to frantically complete the puzzles, eat on the run, and move from one subway train to another. There is little interaction with others as she strives to meet her goal, but the true story is slowly revealed. I found this movie works on several levels, and hope to see it again. The directing is excellent, and the black and white photography adds to the stark mood. Sara Paul does a wonderful job of portraying a woman trapped in obsession.

This film was visually captivating from the opening sequence. It is filmed in black and white with plenty of long and luxurious artistic compositions and detail studies. The viewer follows a beautiful and neurotic woman around New York City while she attempts to complete 77 crossword puzzles in 24 hours.

The film is refreshingly bereft of dialogue. In fact, the only real dialogue is a series of answering machine messages from her mother that slowly reveal the fine points of the plot and the roots of the woman's own neurosis.

The story is told through motion, emotion, ponderous detail studies and the odd answering machine messages. I found it refreshing to watch a movie that wasn't jammed full of incessant blathering where the writer obsessively tries to show me how brilliant they are. The plot points and moral of the story aren't verbalized every 15 minutes. This ain't no 'Sea Biscuit'.

Though it may not be for everyone, I give it top marks all around.

Movies like this one are what make the Sundance Channel my favorite! Marathon is a 72 minute ride of compelling filmmaking on several levels: visually (even for black and white, which I generally dislike watching); sonically (the audio is great, the environmental and subway sounds are almost hypnotic in a way); and emotionally (without having to deal with other characters, or even talking at all). I can understand how many general movie-goers would not appreciate this type of film, but for those who do like independent (or what may be known as "arty") films, Marathon is quite enjoyable and satisfying. And I sure hope we see a lot more of Sara Paul in the future! (hopefully in color -heh) [A]