this film is the polar opposite of meditative.
The Shore is quite simply the most abysmal film I have ever seen. Lacking direction and believabilty, this remarkably unremarkable film was a treat and a delight to watch--a surprising case study of how to do everything wrong and then some.
The story revolves around the fateful day that Calliope's mother loses her granddaughter Anna on the beach. Calliope rushes home, undiscernibly shaken, and the rest of the summer (read: film) sees the child's disappearance take a heavy toll on mother and parents, each acting hysterical, delusional, mechanical and broken in turn. It's supposed to be about a child's disappearance and how it stirs to the surface the disconnect between the characters. It fails.
What results is a panoply of bad acting, bad writing and bad montage--this film actually does next to nothing right, its only redeemable features, the brief, interrupted performance of the lifeguard on duty and the film's very badness itself; its silly pretention gives it momentum and charm, things the picture certainly fails to offer on its own, its hollow, melodramatic script completely devoid of humour or irony, when in fact it should be full of it, peppered throughout with phrases like:
"Miss, could I have two imported beers please?" and
"WHEN ARE WE GONNA BE NORMAL AGAIN!?
WHEN ARE WE GONNA BE NORMAL AGAIN!?"
Anyway, there is a Corvette in the film, and a number of bikini shots, and it is on such needless extravagances (including helicopter and underwater shots and a 30 second sojourn to New York city) that the budget likely blew itself, wounding, more than anything, the acting, cinematography, sound and editing. Oh, that's everything. Bleachy photography, unintentional colour casts (even within sequences) and flat, uninspired lighting; muffled, patchy sound, out of sync ADR and editing that fails to linger (even though it's supposed to be a "mood poem"), lapses repeatedly into flashback, and often juxtaposes high melodrama with fake stripclub scenes (did I mention that the subplot revolves around an unwanted stripclub pregnancy? Hm.) fail to progress the plot, emotional and narrative. Everything rings false and hollow, trite and overdone; completely out of control.
You might think that context or continuity might give these choices purpose and direction, but I promise you, they do not. Inexperienced and pretentious, director Dionysius Zervos has crafted something trying so hard to be something that it is not, that the film literally implodes due to its own incompetence.
It is truly impossible for me to describe how horrendous this picture was except to say that it's an insult to anything that anyone has ever accomplished in cinema, and that therefore, everyone should see it. It was a good time and a definite foregettable highlight of the festival. I can't wait for parts iii & i. What? Exactly.
Official site for The Shore.
Please turn on your word verification. For your own sake, please. And I too would like two imported beers.
ReplyDeleteI hope BLOGGING can be more than posting images from our sketchbooks, a shortcoming I had hoped to avoid but, must admit, am guilty of. Your BLOG is intelligent, personal and completely entertaining. Thank you for having an opinion and for sharing it.
Two imported beeeers.... coming up!
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing was that this was the strip club owner trying to pick up the mom, Calliope--in his own club! So the "miss" in question was actually one of his employees, and the two imported beers... well, shouldn't he know what he's selling? Most generic line ever.
Anyway, thanks for your encouragement. I was pretty certain that no one was reading anything here. I think that BLOGs give you the opportunity to communicate something more about yourself than a bunch of random drawings might--not that drawings aren't revealing, just that we're more complex. If we can talk about our opinions and processes, observations and inclinations... then maybe we're really saying something about ourselves on here.
In any case, I hope to carry on our conversation on design soon, over at my Preservation Hall blog. Does that sound OK? Check it out in a bit.
Nice to e-hear from you!