MicroCinema Scene

The tagline is: “Apathy, technology, paranoia, disease and medication” This is so far the best achievement that I’ve seen in the so call mumblecore genre, which up to now, I quite often considered it an example of lazy filmmaking. There is still no excuse for auto focus, auto iris, and the absense of a tripod no matter how small your budget is. It is fine as an aesthetic choice, but the excuse “I don’t care about those things” is not good enough in my book. Art should have a discernable style, even if you do hand held and out of focus. And this film certainly does in its own pastiche kind of way.

This is the story of a relationship between two loners: Arin Crumley, shy videographer, and Susan Buice a struggling artists. The directors are playing themselves and the film chronicles more or less the journey of that relationship. From a standard dramatic convention, not much happens. It’s an accumulation of great little episodes, masterfully weaven into the film’s open narrative, and its those little intimate moments what shape the film’s mood and make it truly memorable. Everything is thrown into the mix, documentary shots, highly stylized cinematography, stop motion animation, jump cuts, home videos, myspace profiles, fantasy-dream sequences, quick

diversions from the main drama. The array of techniques in display would be too long to list, You can’t help to be reminded that this plays like a 21st century version of the French New Wave.

The result is consistently charming, funny, moody and emotional; it conveys the existential question of a generation and specifically a group of young people quite remarkably. If you like microcinema films that talk abour real people with a fresh new voice, don’t miss this.

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