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Briefly, two more films
Apr. 8th, 2008 10:52 pmMonday was the day on which I realized that my cold is not going to go away without running its course - I just have to hope that it entirely clears up before I fly...So I went down to the Film Festival and saw Don't Go and The Insomniacs and was mildly amused by both, but without entirely feeling that either of them had been quite enough to pull me down to Waterloo and not feel vaguely disappointed.
Insomniacs is a pleasant short comedy about two women picking each other up at a support group for insomniacs and dropping off to sleep in the pure relaxation of being about to have sex, though in the event not. It was smart and sassy and kept their gloomy back stories to a minimum; I'd watch a longer version with great enthusiasm yet felt oddly cheated by just getting 11 minutes.
Don't Go is a calling card pilot episode that does an efficient job of setting up a group of characters who are much less glamorous than the L-Word women while having melodramatic charm of their own. Interestingly, it is all about mothers and fathers and daughters - Cindy is messing up her life looking after a batty and selfish mother while Shantih has had to walk out on comfortable middle-class life to get away from parental pressure. And Jaden is pregnant with the baby of her hermaphrodite lover and neither of them knows what to do with this improbable situation. Bone disapproves, but then Bone is actually Jaden's unknown sister, whose befriending has an element of the stalkery, and GSA is creeping into the occasion. Don't Go passes the simplest test - I would watch more episodes if any got made and I suspect that Amber Sharp will make far better films and television in due course. At the same time, it is unslick and not in a determined or stylish way, just a 'we don't have time to get it right' way. One knows that circumstances dictate this - but it is not endearing.
Then there was Spider Lilies the film which would have made the afternoon an entire pleasure had I not got a dud copy in the viewing suite and had I not continued to try and get it to play without freezes and jumps and wasted ten minutes of a tight schedule. Nonetheless, it is a good film and I plan to see it again when I have my own copy. Slightly nuts Jade and slightly nerdy and traumatised Takeko have been separated for years when Jade turns up in Takeko's tattoo parlour. Jade plays a giggly schoolgirl for web-cam voyeurs - she is pretty much giggly and flirtatious like her screen persona all the time and this makes her borderline disfunctional as well as disturbig to watch. When she meets Takeko again, she can put Jade aside a little - and the police are closing in on her.
This is a memorable creepy melodrama about tattoos and the way that roles we play take over our identities - one day I will see it again and really like it, but yesterday I was not entirely in the mood. It is a film to which you don't expect a happy ending - both women are a little too damaged by circumstance - and yet maybe we get one - the ending is far from pessimistic when one expects it to be gloomy as frakk, and it manages to earn that near happiness. Certainly one to watch.
Insomniacs is a pleasant short comedy about two women picking each other up at a support group for insomniacs and dropping off to sleep in the pure relaxation of being about to have sex, though in the event not. It was smart and sassy and kept their gloomy back stories to a minimum; I'd watch a longer version with great enthusiasm yet felt oddly cheated by just getting 11 minutes.
Don't Go is a calling card pilot episode that does an efficient job of setting up a group of characters who are much less glamorous than the L-Word women while having melodramatic charm of their own. Interestingly, it is all about mothers and fathers and daughters - Cindy is messing up her life looking after a batty and selfish mother while Shantih has had to walk out on comfortable middle-class life to get away from parental pressure. And Jaden is pregnant with the baby of her hermaphrodite lover and neither of them knows what to do with this improbable situation. Bone disapproves, but then Bone is actually Jaden's unknown sister, whose befriending has an element of the stalkery, and GSA is creeping into the occasion. Don't Go passes the simplest test - I would watch more episodes if any got made and I suspect that Amber Sharp will make far better films and television in due course. At the same time, it is unslick and not in a determined or stylish way, just a 'we don't have time to get it right' way. One knows that circumstances dictate this - but it is not endearing.
Then there was Spider Lilies the film which would have made the afternoon an entire pleasure had I not got a dud copy in the viewing suite and had I not continued to try and get it to play without freezes and jumps and wasted ten minutes of a tight schedule. Nonetheless, it is a good film and I plan to see it again when I have my own copy. Slightly nuts Jade and slightly nerdy and traumatised Takeko have been separated for years when Jade turns up in Takeko's tattoo parlour. Jade plays a giggly schoolgirl for web-cam voyeurs - she is pretty much giggly and flirtatious like her screen persona all the time and this makes her borderline disfunctional as well as disturbig to watch. When she meets Takeko again, she can put Jade aside a little - and the police are closing in on her.
This is a memorable creepy melodrama about tattoos and the way that roles we play take over our identities - one day I will see it again and really like it, but yesterday I was not entirely in the mood. It is a film to which you don't expect a happy ending - both women are a little too damaged by circumstance - and yet maybe we get one - the ending is far from pessimistic when one expects it to be gloomy as frakk, and it manages to earn that near happiness. Certainly one to watch.
