This reminds me of why I hate film collectives.
Where to start.
Checklist for archetypes and/or motifs employed by pretentious student film makers.
Someone, somewhere, reading a book. CHECK.
A modern day damsel in distress in need of rescue. Emotionally. CHECK.
Widescreen. CHECK.
Nafftastic film title that eschews capitals so as not to detract from the simple pure essence of the film itself yet simultaneously works to tell the audience that yes, this film will understand you as much as you understand it. CHECK.
Hobby photography. CHECK.
Favourite lines include but are not limited to:
1. "I don't use facebook." Check out how deep she is. WHAT A LUDDITE HA HA WANT TO BONE HER AND FEEL HER SOUL.
2. "Yeats, Plath, Beckett." In towers from floor to ceiling apparently. I bet he carries a dog-eared copy of The Bell Jar around in his back pocket because it's a) less predictable than The Catcher In The Rye and b) demonstrative of his superior affinity for emotionally volatile females in need of a little TLC.
3. "You're real." "And so am I, let's be real together and loooooooovvvvvveeeee maaaaadddddlyyyyyyy."
God. I knew so many dicks like this at university that it actually shocked me to discover this was written and directed by a girl.
Mtk says: "Oh yeah, it is that whole Mary Sue thing you guys were telling me about where a girl can be completely ordinary and boring and PASSIVE and yet still get chased by the exciting handsome fellow..
Boring!"
I say: "Girls never place themselves as the wild exciting type after the boring nothing man. BECAUSE THAT IS BORING. But clearly it is okay for girls to be just a blank canvas. Because who wants to actually talk to them anyway?"
I think the 'best' student film script I ever read involved a girl's loss of virginity represented by the accidental destruction of her Mickey Mouse watch. Her subsequent lack of faith in everything she believed to be true about love is shown by a cinema screen cracking and flooding her with blood. For real.
A little like an episode of Dawsons Creek. I bet if I went up to a girl in a park and took her picture without asking I'd get either punched out or arrested.
ReplyDeleteI haven't watched it (these walls have ears ... at work), but as a bloke, I'm always insulted at the ideology that men are always attracted to shy/retiring/non-threatening/non-challenging/uninteresting-in-every-way girls who are just around to reassure them about how much control they really have over their own lives.
ReplyDeletePhooey to that.
Bring on the ladeez wiv personality what crack jokes and tell you to pull your socks up occasionally ...
I really like the chair. I think there should be more of it.
ReplyDeleteWhat about "I'm scared too! Let's be scared together..." and then long gaze into eyes...
ReplyDeleteI think I've seen that in about 5 films this year already. Maybe I just watch rubbish. The sad thing is, that's not just confined to student films anymore. I guess the students will eventually graduate and make real movies. Shock. Horror. Disappointment.
Surely boys who live in book lined rooms shoot with film or polaroid. Or with homemade pinhole cameras. And I have to say, his rampant book collection must include HUNDREDS of copies of The Bell Jar if Plath, Yeats and Beckett are the only authors he reads...or perhaps he lives in a very small room?
ReplyDeleteEeeek.