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Reviews
White Lies (2013)
Nicely filmed but that's about it.
This film is based on a book by Witi Ihimaera called Medicine Woman. For some reason the title was changed to White Lies. Perhaps that was an attempt to inflame racial passions and get people interested enough to go and see it. I don't know, but I find the choice of title to be in highly questionable taste.
But apart from that the best I can say for this film is it looks nice, as NZ films and television invariably does. It's not hard to make a nice looking film in NZ considering our scenery, but unfortunately it is used to hide a multitude of sins, such as a weak story and poor acting among others. The story in White Lies is interesting enough in its own way, but everything else lets it down and even the cinematography can't save it.
The dialog sounded false and artificial and very few of the actors seemed at all professional. So much so that it was difficult to concentrate on the story, such was the poor quality of almost all of the actors involved. I am all for encouraging NZ film and television but that doesn't mean we MUST only use inexperienced locals surely?
I'm sorry to hurt the feelings of anyone involved in this film. I'm sure you did your best and gave it your all, and I certainly wanted to love this film after enduring the dismal Top of the Lake, but I'm afraid I found White Lies to be just another in a long string of low quality Kiwi films. Please don't take it personally.
Once again full marks for the cinematography and scenery, but low marks for all the rest. Better luck next time everyone.
Top of the Lake (2013)
Pretty bad.
Top of the Lake earns a solid 8 for the cinematography, but a 1 for everything else. The show looks pretty, but in all other respects it's woefully bad.
The writing is amateurish, with a story that seems cobbled together from random sources like a ransom note, but without the competence. It's almost a compendium of every common literary cliché, and, well, just plain silly. Nothing makes any real sense, none of the plot points add up to anything, as logic flies out the window.
The characters are laughable, while their dialog is simply ridiculous. No one we encounter is in any way realistic and every line they speak sounds completely artificial. The acting ranges from barely tolerable to grossly offensive. This is partly due to some of the main cast being forced to portray foreigners, despite the fact that it's wholly unnecessary.
It all gets even worse when you actually listen to their lines which appear to have been written by a teenager who has never heard a real conversation in their entire life.
Jane Campion has won an Oscar and at least one top award at Cannes. If you didn't already know that, you'd never believe it, based on this show.