I was totally unexpecting this movie when it happened. So was everyone else with me. It's been weeks since I read the description, so I had forgotten what this movie was even going to be about.
I'll start with the bad points: The sound sucks. I don't know why so many films this year have had such bad sound quality. Perhaps the director wanted some effect that bad sound quality creates, like confusion at what is exactly being said, or concentrated listening. I think it just needs a bit more work, though. Also, the film stock quality seemed low, images were grainier and more blurred than I liked. That, and the light levels were too high, the light bled a lot and images weren't clear. You expect a bit of this kind of thing in independant film though, so it's far from the end of the world.
My point here though is that despite it's failings in some technical areas, the incredible story being told more than makes up for shortcomings the film has. It's truly that good.
The story starts with four friends, engineers who gather as friends to work on projects in their garage. The whole team of them work on one project, that project apparently chosen by the one of them whos turn it is to choose the project. Two of them have plans of their own though, a project they don't want to involve the other two in...
As the story progresses it gets more and more confusing as to what exactly is going on here. The way some scenes are shot (short scenes shot multiple times in quick succession, all slightly different from each other) works excellently for what the director is trying to do, show you how the same thing is somehow happening multiple times, and that things change each time.
Eventually all the pieces start really coming together and you can see that this 2-man partnership that has invented this fantastic device is really falling apart as both men get a little crazier each time through.
By the end of the movie, you've got a basic grasp on everything that's been going on. Enough questions have been answered that you can finally see the big picture, and lots of little questions remain unanswered because they aren't really important to the overall results, but they give such a sense of reality to the movie (since you rarely get all the answers in real life) that it helps the mood more that I thought possible.
A total mindbender that I am highly impressed with, especially since this is the directors first film!
Posted by Task at September 19, 2004 01:54 PM