Cicadas

Cicadas is an awesome coming-of-age movie by a marvelous young director with a small budget that is sure to be looked back at years from now as the first sign of her brilliance. It centers around three kids who are basically left to fend for themselves as the parents have to be on the road making their livings -- a common problem in modern-day America. The young cast of major characters all do a wonderful job, especially Bryan Chafin as Simon and Lindsay Broockman as his older sister. Kat Candler directed, produced, and wrote this touching, at times painful movie, and should not be missed!

I fell pretty confident in declaring that CICADAS, from Kat Candler, the same filmmaker who brought us the earlier ultra-depressing, though slightly more accomplished Reel 13 Indie JUMPING OFF BRIDGES, is the absolute worst film shown on Reel 13 so far this year. As much as I loathe the contrivances and major tonal issues within WILBY WONDERFUL, at least it had a sense of cinematic expression. I haven't seen a film in a long time, let alone on a major television station, that was so poorly executed.

CICADAS is probably one of the least expensive indies they've shown so far (only TWO HARBORS might have been slightly cheaper), but its microbudget is no excuse for poor storytelling. Both myself and most audiences can forgive a lack of extras or dolly shots or sparse production design, but as long as you can afford a camera, the rules of cinematic storytelling still apply.

CICADAS gets started on a very bad note with an overwritten voice-over that sounds like a last place entry in an amateur poetry contest. It is a prediction of the clunky, forced symbolism that Candler tries to imbue throughout the film. Things get worse when the actors start to speak. Candler is once again dealing with teenagers and again, she seems to be using non-actors. Obviously, finding trained, quality actors is a challenge on a small budget, but it is possible and quite frankly, essential. If you don't believe the characters you are following are real, the whole experience of the film is minimized and you are lost. It's enough of a risk to invest time and money into a film and then to place that investment on the shoulders of a young, untrained cast. A very dangerous proposition. Unfortunately, Candler does not seem to have the skills as a director to guide her inexperienced cast to portray real, three-dimensional human beings.

Even worse, Candler does not seem to have any idea what she's doing with blocking for the camera or even in the editing room. The staging and her camera placement is extremely uninspired and unrealistic throughout and yet these are essential skills for making a film. Characters are often just sitting around when someone approaches them to start a scene. When are people ever just sitting around? People do things – GIVE YOUR CHARACTERS SOMETHING TO DO. Then, when the one character approaches the sitting character, they don't really have a choice but to sit next to the other character. So, now you have a scene (many of which are long) with two sitting characters. That's boring, unrealistic and unnecessary. The big moment of the film in which the two main characters are on a date-type thing, they are in a field and the most exciting thing they do is spin around in circles with their hands spread out. They look like they're having a blast, but I don't buy it for a second. It just made me dizzy.

As a low-budget filmmaker, you're already starting behind the eight ball with so many financial limitations in terms of locations, cast, equipment, shooting days, etc. that the only way you are going to make up the gap is by confident, strong storytelling. CICADAS fails to do that. Now, I'll admit that though Kat Candler's follow-up film, JUMPING OFF BRIDGES, made me want to slit my wrists, it seems she had learned a lot of these skills that she lacked during the production of CICADAS. In that sense, it could be argued that CICADAS was a stepping stone or a learning experience, but that doesn't mean it deserves a spot on an independent cinema program in the nation's largest television market. And hopefully, we fans of Reel 13 won't have to endure anything like it again.

I saw Cicadas at the Austin Film Festival last night. Kat Candler joins the growing number of independent filmmakers who are turning to digital filmmaking as a method of bringing their vision to life. Overall, the film was impressive in many ways. Candler shows that she definitely knows what do do behind the camera. Her composition and eye for detail were right on the money. Still, I felt that the story treaded on already worn ground. The all too familiar "coming of age in a small town" theme is something that we've seen time and time again, especially in small Texas communities. ("The Last Picture Show," and "Dancer, Texas.") Chandler takes a somewhat fresh perspective, setting the story from a a 16 year old girl's point of view (I don't know the actresses name, but she was impressive), but the overall effect is the same. Still, given the budget and the fact that this is the director's and many of the actor's first efforts, this film is worthwhile for seeing just as an example of the potential for digital filmmaking, especially on low budgets. The question should be raised though, what role does the digital filmmaker have in the cinematic world right now? I'm still waiting to see the film that really puts digital filmmaking on the scene. I'm hoping we don't have to wait for Lucas to do it for us in 2002, I'd much rather see a smaller, more powerful film really break the bounds and show the world the medium's true potential. Whatever it is, it's got to be something fresh, something we haven't seen before - no easy task in a business where so many things have been tried and recycled over and over again. As for Cicadas - I think it's a good stepping stone for Candler, and I hope that someone sees this film and gives her more work.

If Cicadas had been made before 1975, it would have snuck up on and charmed the film viewers of the time, becoming the sleeper of the year. Back then Hollywood might have even made this film. Jaws had not yet established the high-concept blockbuster formula, and Star Wars had not yet made Hollywood lustful for the mega-profit movie that has increasingly shut "small films" out of the theatrical market.

Cicadas has no "high concept", no stars, no instantly marketable hook. What is does have is deft and insightful writing, directing and editing by filmmaker Kat Candler, remarkable performances by the young cast (Lindsay Broockman, Brandon Howe, Paul Conrad, and Bryan Chafin particularly stand out), and a big, but unsentimental heart. It's a coming-of-age story focusing on young, intelligent, frustrated, misfit kids becoming adults, using the cicada's life cycle as a gentle metaphor for the youngsters' own transformation.

Candler has written subtle, honest, understated dialog that lets 16 year olds sound and act like 16 year olds and avoids stilted speeches and contrivances. They don't always know what to say or how to be with each other or why they feel the way they do. They are people, not types. They live their lives in fits and spurts, rather than follow a plot line like trains on a track.

I've purposely not focused on the plot, because it might sound agonizing familiar. Nerdy smart girl is left to care for her older and younger brother as parents travel frequently on business. Friendless, she meets the new boy in high school, a smoldering, mysterious boy who is there as a consequence of his trouble at another school. He is closed off and tough, fatherless, his mother lost in the bottle since the tragic loss of her first born son. The boy is also a remarkably sensitive poet. They are drawn to and repelled from each other throughout the twists of the tale, which weaves in the subplots of the nerdy, boy-scout, entomologist little brother and the iconoclastic, artistic older brother, both outcasts as well trying to find their place in the world.

It could have been cliche, but manages to be a rich and engrossing tale, full of little, individual rings of truth rather than trying to deliver one big one at the end. And in doing so, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Cicadas in not a perfect film, its limited budget occasionally hamstringing it for tiny moments, but it is a beautiful one, minor warts and all.

Went to this film with some reservations thinking it was a low budget first time effort, but was surprised at how professional and well-made it is. The payoff for every film is the ending and whether or not it moves me emotionally, and by the time I left the theater I was moved, almost to tears. The film is somewhat like "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" only original in it's own right. The director, Kat Candler, should be commended for her delicate, reserved treatment. Filmed on location in a house that looks just like the house from "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" only without the meat hooks, it was shot on DV and had it's premier at the Austin Film Festival 2000 were it played to packed audiences. Also noteworthy is the camera work of Jim Eastburn who has a great sense of composition. Hopefully we will see more work from these talented filmmakers in the near future.