I watched a handful of Free Cinema films this weekend and I generally found them to be interesting "reality" documentaries that allowed for a good amount of interesting footage if not as much insight as I would have liked. Here the "BFI Experimental" title card is well deserved though because this is nothing like the other films I have just watched because it is a free flowing mess of "clever" ideas forming a sort of story.
It screams "experimental student film" from start to finish though and this is not something one should take as a compliment because it is not a strength. If you imagine a spoof of those pretentious arty foreign films where characters stand around and stare off into the distance while "deep" narration is delivered over them then this is what this film appears to be like. In fact it was such a bang on cliché of student experimental shorts that I assumed that must be what it was. If it was this though, I missed the point because mostly it seemed to be aspiring rather than lampooning. So it goes on with cleverly framed shots and lots of unusual substance that I suppose is a mix of wacky and clever if you went to a public school.
I'm sure someone with an education and knowledge will correct me and point out the importance of this film and how I totally missed the point, but this is the risk I take so fine. All I can say is that it felt like more effort was put into making it look clever than actually being clever. All very meaningful and smart to those that made it I'm sure but as a viewer many decades later I must confess it just came over as a jumble of derivative ideas that never once suggested substance or professionalism.
It screams "experimental student film" from start to finish though and this is not something one should take as a compliment because it is not a strength. If you imagine a spoof of those pretentious arty foreign films where characters stand around and stare off into the distance while "deep" narration is delivered over them then this is what this film appears to be like. In fact it was such a bang on cliché of student experimental shorts that I assumed that must be what it was. If it was this though, I missed the point because mostly it seemed to be aspiring rather than lampooning. So it goes on with cleverly framed shots and lots of unusual substance that I suppose is a mix of wacky and clever if you went to a public school.
I'm sure someone with an education and knowledge will correct me and point out the importance of this film and how I totally missed the point, but this is the risk I take so fine. All I can say is that it felt like more effort was put into making it look clever than actually being clever. All very meaningful and smart to those that made it I'm sure but as a viewer many decades later I must confess it just came over as a jumble of derivative ideas that never once suggested substance or professionalism.
