The Arsonist

I saw this movie at the San Jose Film Festival (Cinequest), along with many other short films, both good (by major schools) and bad (by local junior college kids). I felt it was the most mature of the films shown at the festival. I can well understand why this film was selected to be shown at the Venice International Film Festival. It is a professionally made film, with muscular production values. The actors are just top, no question about it. It mixes humor (in the classroom) with serious medical problems (narcolepsy) with even more serious psychological problems (the pyromaniac) and a deep look into existential values (there is no god, so each person is responsible for making their own values). It deserves a ten rating.

I think that The Arsonist is a gutsy film because it challenges the audience to see deeper into the human condition. It is stylish because of the use of music and image sequences to portray a person disintegrating into amorality. It shows Vincent changing from an alienated professor to a personally engaged but dangerous and amoral psychologist. The actors are superb and the photography is brilliant and creative. My favorite shot is at the beginning in the classroom when Vincent opens the shade and the light on Diana's face changes to a glaring brightness. The definitive moment in the film is when the camera closes in on John's face when he ignores John's problem and instead tells him of some personal theory he's working on about auto-eroticism. It is this moment which finalizes Vincent's view that he is alienated from the world. I wonder - how could he be redeemed? He can't do it himself. He needs to somehow reconnect with Diana and learn for himself that his feelings have changed. Well, of course, he gives Janine matches, so there will be a fire and Diana could save him, maybe.

The Arsonist is a rare film by a filmmaker with a unique voice.

Being a filmmaker myself, I appreciate films which have a distinct sensibility and a particular point of view. The Arsonist is one of those films. Writer/Director Myles Sorensen has a style and a sensibility that is 100% original and fresh. It is this type of filmmaker who will break open the current conventions of Hollywood Cinema and raise it to a new level. And we need this!

The Arsonist is a brave film because it doesn't follow any particular conventions, nor does it beg to ask you to like it. It simply offers you a flavorful, engaging, stylistic, complex narrative that leaves you with questions that are more fun to try to answer on your own, than to gobble up with a spoon.

I tip my hat to the unique voice of Writer/Director Myles Sorenson.

I enjoyed this movie very much. I especially liked the music scene in the middle of it. I thought the actors were great, especially Vincent and Janine. The ending bothered me a little because he gave her matches and she's a pyromaniac, but I did understand the changes that occurred in the film that made him that way. The beginning was very funny when they were in the cafeteria and in the classroom. I thought the actor was terrific at the parts where he went to sleep so quickly. The fire scene was so real, I wonder how Janine, the actress, could stand it with so many flames behind her. Myles has a great sense of humor and it shows in this movie. I hope he goes on to a great career and maybe someday I will get to see this movie in the theaters.

I am not a movie person. I don't go to a lot of movies, and I don't make movies. I am an agricultural person. But I know a good thing when I see one. I was on a Mormon mission in Dijon, France, so I am familiar with a lot of art. I think this movie was a piece of art. I cannot agree with the ending, and I don't know why it had to be so, although I do admit that it was quite dramatic. I surprised myself by liking the musical pastiche in the middle of Vincent going through his narcoleptic sequence. Vincent, Sean, John, even Diana, were serious people, although John is an example of what is wrong with academic America (not true of Brigham Young University, I note) who think they don't have to pay attention to anybody. I wonder what affect this movie would have upon a young person watching it. I cannot recommend this film, no matter how well made it is or how artistic or how good the acting. Maybe as an anti-example of what type of life to avoid.