When I first read about the Remodernist film movement I thought it was a little silly. While I agreed with much of it, I couldn't help but wonder why anyone should force another man's rules onto his or her own creative process in an attempt to make better films. And the whole thing just seemed a little arrogant at first, then extremely arrogant later on when I read the part where amateur filmmakers (for lack of a better word) called Stanley Kubrick a bad filmmaker (while later giving praise to Andrei Tarkovsky a.k.a. the Russian Kubrick). And then when I saw a couple of Remodernist short films my suspicions were confirmed. They were uninspired garbage by filmmakers who had nothing to say, no doubt hindered by these rules they placed on themselves in attempt to set themselves free.
And then I decided to watch In Passing. I didn't like it at first. A big part of the whole Remodernist thing is capturing the honest moments in life and allowing the mistakes to make it into the final cut. And the first twenty minutes of In Passing showed me that that meant letting the actors look awkwardly at the camera a bunch of times and to have very little dialogue. It felt like the filmmakers didn't know what the heck they were doing. Those aren't really bad things, but they're not inherently good either, and here they felt bad. At first.
But then something funny happened. I started to enjoy it. I usually watch movies that are a little different and I find them to be good for that very reason. But this felt different and bad until I got used to it. Everything sort of came together at about the thirty minute mark and I really got into it. There is a certain honesty and truth to these stories, so I guess the filmmakers really did accomplish something.
My favorite segments were "Debt," "Detritus," and "Almost," although all of the segments have their place in the film and work together nicely. They all make a point, even if that "point" is just a general feeling. And even when the film seemed slow or boring or overly strange before I got into it, I should mention that it always sounded great.
I still feel that the whole Remodernist thing is a bit silly and unnecessary, although maybe not as strongly as I felt before. But either way, no matter what my feelings are on that, I do know that this is a good movie.
Stanley Kubrick rules!
