Spoilers herein.
All films are screwed up in some way - it is only a matter of degree. So I don't mind rooting around in the direct-to-video barrel; I find the same percentage of watchable films as with theatrical releases. Often I find something that is intelligently written that is messed up in the process of making it real and that is the case here. The idea at least is a good one.
These films are a game to figure out who is the grand manipulator of what we see. Usually it is a rather simple game, often with a husband or wife turning out to be the grand conspirator.
This is much smarter for two reasons. First, it uses a common smart trick, to blur the creation of the movie with the creation of the conspiracy. So we have a screenwriter writing a screenplay about a writer writing what could be the story we see. Ordinarily, we might have one such `folding' of plot (the plot of the film and the plot in the film). But here we have three, fighting amongst themselves. The mystery is which of these three is the master force.
We have the writer, writing the movie. Is he the mastermind? Actually, in that very last shot, there is an indication that he might indeed have been manipulating everything we see, including the means to get him absolved.
We have the `painter' (clearly the metaphor for the filmmaker) who creates images using text and bodies. What is acting if not placing bodies in pictures? This is particularly clever and could have formed an excuse to make this part an `art' film. The superficial `solution' at the end is that she is the master manipulator. And true, superficially, the filmmaker won over the writer, completely ruining his life.
But we also have a third force, the psychiatrist. Psychiatry is all about history. Films, especially genre films, are all about history as well. None of these films is about reality, but about other films. Part of the game - the larger part - is to fool us by playing with expectations from other films. This dark character, aptly named `Singer,' may be the real mind behind it all.
The story is a rather clever shifting of these three: who is it that is the winner in the battle among the three-way magical contest for control over what we see? And at the same time, the people behind the film are engaged in a similar battle: who will win, the writer, filmmaker or the inertia of the genre?
A clever viewer can get a lot of fun out of these layered ambiguities.
If you are a practiced viewer, you can also gloss over the rather lackluster production values, but one thing really rankles. The DVD has one of those setups where you must view two horrid trailers, there is no way out. In fact, there is no menu at all or even chapter markings - the distributer spent the absolute minimum. I found my copy at BlockBuster which clearly has a good deal with these direct-to-video suppliers to fill out their stock.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 4: Has some interesting elements.
All films are screwed up in some way - it is only a matter of degree. So I don't mind rooting around in the direct-to-video barrel; I find the same percentage of watchable films as with theatrical releases. Often I find something that is intelligently written that is messed up in the process of making it real and that is the case here. The idea at least is a good one.
These films are a game to figure out who is the grand manipulator of what we see. Usually it is a rather simple game, often with a husband or wife turning out to be the grand conspirator.
This is much smarter for two reasons. First, it uses a common smart trick, to blur the creation of the movie with the creation of the conspiracy. So we have a screenwriter writing a screenplay about a writer writing what could be the story we see. Ordinarily, we might have one such `folding' of plot (the plot of the film and the plot in the film). But here we have three, fighting amongst themselves. The mystery is which of these three is the master force.
We have the writer, writing the movie. Is he the mastermind? Actually, in that very last shot, there is an indication that he might indeed have been manipulating everything we see, including the means to get him absolved.
We have the `painter' (clearly the metaphor for the filmmaker) who creates images using text and bodies. What is acting if not placing bodies in pictures? This is particularly clever and could have formed an excuse to make this part an `art' film. The superficial `solution' at the end is that she is the master manipulator. And true, superficially, the filmmaker won over the writer, completely ruining his life.
But we also have a third force, the psychiatrist. Psychiatry is all about history. Films, especially genre films, are all about history as well. None of these films is about reality, but about other films. Part of the game - the larger part - is to fool us by playing with expectations from other films. This dark character, aptly named `Singer,' may be the real mind behind it all.
The story is a rather clever shifting of these three: who is it that is the winner in the battle among the three-way magical contest for control over what we see? And at the same time, the people behind the film are engaged in a similar battle: who will win, the writer, filmmaker or the inertia of the genre?
A clever viewer can get a lot of fun out of these layered ambiguities.
If you are a practiced viewer, you can also gloss over the rather lackluster production values, but one thing really rankles. The DVD has one of those setups where you must view two horrid trailers, there is no way out. In fact, there is no menu at all or even chapter markings - the distributer spent the absolute minimum. I found my copy at BlockBuster which clearly has a good deal with these direct-to-video suppliers to fill out their stock.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 4: Has some interesting elements.