Visioneers

Trailers are strange beasts that often hugely misrepresent the tone of a film. I'm not sure if I enjoy the mischievous manipulation involved, or hate the mistrust that it generates. A little of both, I guess.

Visioneers is one such example: the trailer comes across as a fairly light-hearted, quirky romantic comedy.

In reality, however, this film deserves to sit beside 1984 and Blade Runner as dark and disturbing visions of dystopian futures. While it starts out with the uncomfortable humor you'd expect from a Zach Galifianakis film, the atmosphere of oppression builds over the course of the movie to become almost unbearable. This film makes Requiem for a Dream seem like an episode of 'friends'. The central character, George, lives robotically both in his dull office job and at home in a loveless marriage. The world around him is full of deadpan absurdities, a parody of drab offices and mid life crises, with an undercurrent of hopelessness that rings a little too true to sit comfortably.

The way the theme of dreams is turned into a literal threat is done with obvious self-awareness, but it comes across like a bad cinematic pun. Its more carefully constructed distortions of reality are where it really shines, with its vapid self-help infomercials, eccentric mentor figures, and the mega-corporation as a cult. And the way George seems to communicate through much of the movie semi-telepathically instead of verbally may be strange and unsettling, but also mesmerizing. Thoroughly worth watching.

I mean, I get it. This movie is just not enjoyable in any way. There's a message in there about the awful dullness of the American white-collar lifestyle, marked by affluence stripped of all meaning or pleasure. It's all expressed with a bit of weirdness trying for absurdity. Unfortunately the movie ends without any real redemptive moment or even purpose. I did though like the bits on superficial tension-relieving strategies, since we seem to be awash in them these days, with predictable results.

I guess my review is kind of biased - if I had never seen the Hangover, I would have probably not enjoyed the movie as much as I did. Somehow ZG seems to be exuding the right kind of vibes for this year or something. Visoneers reminded me of a plethora of American movies - Hudsucker, Brazil, 1984 - all mixed into one in a somewhat subdued, indie approach. If you haven't seen any of those movies this movie would strike you odd as it is one to convey a meaning much similar to the J-horror of Kurosawa. Considering the strangeness of the movie I expected the end to be somewhat living up to it, but this is where it kind of veers back to normality which I think may have been done for a proper distribution. If you want to watch it for ZG or have a penchant for movies that make you think go ahead full steam, otherwise just wait for the next ZG one, now that he's almost famous. For attempting to make a movie like this and picking ZG before he was famous, this movie gets my 7/10.

I was at the Seattle premiere and I have to say that this film exceeded my wildest expectations, I've been a fan of Zach's for a while but I never expected this. I was skeptical of what seemed, from previews, like a plot that reached too far and relied on shock value but I was wrong, the film is beautiful and the absurdity comes from a real and painful place. Zach's performance is beautifully understated and he accomplishes so much with very few lines and the rest of the cast was really well constructed on what seems like a shoestring budget. Having grown up in Seattle it was really great to see cast members from Almost Live, it was just a really great experience over all (except the audio in the theater sucked) and I highly recommend it.

If you made a movie about the abuses of a meat packing industry and your audience was the owners of several meat packing firms, you wouldn't get good reviews. That mostly explains the unusually low score for this movie. Its not likely to bring glee to the eyes of those that usually adorn the walls of the local multiplex.

The film is pretty good satire. Its satire not only comes from the situation, but the foreboding mood that lurks throughout the film. It takes on multiple dysfunctions in American life. These would include corporations, Oprah Winfrey, Junk Food, Televangelists, Suburban Households, Materialism, etc.

The film does this all pretty well. There are some occasional flat notes; this would include Zach Galifianakis going into overly long star offs. Most of the staring he does is within bounds, but sometimes he crosses the line. Some of the satire was lacking any subtlety; I'm thinking of the life coach who tries to cure Zach.

Many people have compared this to Brazil, its a fair comparison. In terms of quality, this movie is light years away from Brazil; that is very important however. The one plot point that greatly diverges with Brazil is the ending. I liked the ending to this and thought it fit very well with the rest of the movie. If it ended another way, the film may have come off to much as a wet rag.