Film without a point? Couldn't finish.
What can I say about a film I only watched the first quarter of? It's not my habit to stop a film once I've started watching. With this one, I hit the 30-minute mark and the film was just plodding along. I didn't have the impression that anything important had happened. Don't get me wrong: events had occurred but it didn't feel like there was any weight to any of them. To illustrate my point I've transcribed the beginning of the film. For the above reason you don't need to worry about spoilers.
We're in the middle of the desert, middle of nowhere. A fence runs through it. A voice narrates something about a "bad batch" as two police officers lead a young girl through a gate in the fence and lock up after her. A sign tells us that this is Texas and beyond the fence she's no longer a citizen of the USA and doesn't enjoy any rights. She stares gormlessly after the police car as it leaves. Next scene: she eats her rations. Next scene: she starts walking, even does a little dance and basically seems completely unfazed by her situation. Next scene: she finds a car and sits in it. Not because she feels hot and wants to get out of the sun, not because she wants to try and start it up and have a means of transportation, not because she intends to loot the car, she just sits in it - and applies some make-up. A golf cart comes into view behind her, draws nearer, she notices it but doesn't display any reaction. Next scene: she's running for her life away from the golf cart until one of the occupants pounces on her.
I hope I'm getting across the point that even in these first few minutes our main character does stuff but not because she displays any motivation but just because the script seems to call for them. And this goes on and is also true of the other characters. I found it infuriating to watch a movie in which the characters just do meaningless stuff or stare gormlessly into the middle distance. By the 30-minute mark the movie had failed to properly establish the setting, the characters and the plot. It also took until roughly that time for any spoken dialogue to come up - that wasn't grunting or screaming.
I think I know what they were going for: bleak, grim and brooding. And that didn't work because a) they would have needed to establish some contrast, otherwise it's just bleak against bleak. b) it's hard to come off as bleak when the characters have food, water, shelter, firearms with ammunition, electricity, some form of medical care, body lotion (some guys seem oiled up like it's Mr. Universe) and even entertainment. Since the film makers were obviously going for something like Mad Max or Escape from New York they should have checked out how messed up characters in those movie were - with all their gear cobbled together from spare parts. You could see plainly that they were living in harsh conditions. c) if they were going for brooding and grim they should show the violence and have characters react to it appropriately. Our leading lady doesn't seem traumatised enough considering she should be far from used to the kinds of things that happen to her.
I stopped watching after about the first quarter because I couldn't see the film going anywhere. It was scene after scene of tracking shots of people walking or close-ups of people staring silently. In better films such techniques might have been used for pacing or building atmosphere but here they only come across as pretentious. Maybe I stopped watching before the film gets good but somehow I doubt it and I also don't really care. If the film can't seem to make an effort to engage my interest why should I continue watching it?
We're in the middle of the desert, middle of nowhere. A fence runs through it. A voice narrates something about a "bad batch" as two police officers lead a young girl through a gate in the fence and lock up after her. A sign tells us that this is Texas and beyond the fence she's no longer a citizen of the USA and doesn't enjoy any rights. She stares gormlessly after the police car as it leaves. Next scene: she eats her rations. Next scene: she starts walking, even does a little dance and basically seems completely unfazed by her situation. Next scene: she finds a car and sits in it. Not because she feels hot and wants to get out of the sun, not because she wants to try and start it up and have a means of transportation, not because she intends to loot the car, she just sits in it - and applies some make-up. A golf cart comes into view behind her, draws nearer, she notices it but doesn't display any reaction. Next scene: she's running for her life away from the golf cart until one of the occupants pounces on her.
I hope I'm getting across the point that even in these first few minutes our main character does stuff but not because she displays any motivation but just because the script seems to call for them. And this goes on and is also true of the other characters. I found it infuriating to watch a movie in which the characters just do meaningless stuff or stare gormlessly into the middle distance. By the 30-minute mark the movie had failed to properly establish the setting, the characters and the plot. It also took until roughly that time for any spoken dialogue to come up - that wasn't grunting or screaming.
I think I know what they were going for: bleak, grim and brooding. And that didn't work because a) they would have needed to establish some contrast, otherwise it's just bleak against bleak. b) it's hard to come off as bleak when the characters have food, water, shelter, firearms with ammunition, electricity, some form of medical care, body lotion (some guys seem oiled up like it's Mr. Universe) and even entertainment. Since the film makers were obviously going for something like Mad Max or Escape from New York they should have checked out how messed up characters in those movie were - with all their gear cobbled together from spare parts. You could see plainly that they were living in harsh conditions. c) if they were going for brooding and grim they should show the violence and have characters react to it appropriately. Our leading lady doesn't seem traumatised enough considering she should be far from used to the kinds of things that happen to her.
I stopped watching after about the first quarter because I couldn't see the film going anywhere. It was scene after scene of tracking shots of people walking or close-ups of people staring silently. In better films such techniques might have been used for pacing or building atmosphere but here they only come across as pretentious. Maybe I stopped watching before the film gets good but somehow I doubt it and I also don't really care. If the film can't seem to make an effort to engage my interest why should I continue watching it?
- darth-tobe
- Sep 23, 2017