The Mapmaker

Overall this was an impressive short film to watch when I had no previous knowledge of its existence. It had an interesting use of technique with the still frames animated in a pulsing flow. Not something I have often come across. Creating a dream like, unreal, atmosphere. If this was a dream it was a lucid, fevered and harsh one.

The narration and story were engaging and drew me into the feel of the work. Soothing this viewer into a gentle drift of anticipation.

I enjoyed the arc of the action, following an inevitable path. I found the film quite moving and beautifully made. Sweetness and horror combined in an urban landscape many miles away from my own but so similar all the same.

Liked the voice of the narrator - unaffected and calm - perhaps even a little cold.

After googling "The Mapmaker" just to see what came up, this was one of the first results. After reading the synopsis, I decided to watch it since I generally like things about suicide and maps. I was unimpressed, mainly because we don't see the suicide happen and there was no mapmaking.

I generally like all-things-UK as well, and the Scottish narrator along with a pretty good score held my attention throughout the first few minutes. Unfortunately, once the intro was over, the narrator dove into the protagonist, a predictable female social outlier, replete with second-hand brand name wear and too much eye shadow. We've seen this before - Boring! Of course, had she been a good actress I'd be willing to feed into this character development, but the fact that the film was shot frame-by-frame and looks like someone flipping the pages of a picture book, we have no way of knowing how good of an actress she actually is.

This wasn't a film, it was a pseudo-artistic PowerPoint presentation.