Three parts Gus van Sant's 'Elephant' to one part Gregg Araki's 'Totally F***ed Up', the debut feature from 19 year old director Murali K Thalluri - which replaces a high school massacre with suicide - is a film so derivative that it borders on plagiarism.
This re-creation of Van Sant's 'an ordinary high school day - except that it's not' opened this year's 55th Melbourne International Film Festival to a largely underwhelmed audience.
Key elements such as tracking shots, temporal displacement, soundtrack and cinematography were copied almost verbatim from Van Sant's film.
Awkward dialogue and pacing, coupled with inconsistent performances from the amateur cast, ensured that the majority of the film's plot 'twists' were telegraphed to viewers far too soon.
While the inexperienced young director deserves kudos for financing his debut feature totally independently, the only merit in this earnest, awkward and unoriginal film lies in the fact that it was made at all.
This re-creation of Van Sant's 'an ordinary high school day - except that it's not' opened this year's 55th Melbourne International Film Festival to a largely underwhelmed audience.
Key elements such as tracking shots, temporal displacement, soundtrack and cinematography were copied almost verbatim from Van Sant's film.
Awkward dialogue and pacing, coupled with inconsistent performances from the amateur cast, ensured that the majority of the film's plot 'twists' were telegraphed to viewers far too soon.
While the inexperienced young director deserves kudos for financing his debut feature totally independently, the only merit in this earnest, awkward and unoriginal film lies in the fact that it was made at all.