3 February 2013 10:35 AM, PST | GreenCine Daily | See recent GreenCine Daily news »
by Steve Dollar
[Editor's note: due to budget cuts and internal restructuring, Steve's review will likely be my final post for GreenCine Daily. Thank you all for reading during my four-year tenure, and be sure to follow me, Steve, Vadim and Nick on Twitter for more cine-obsessed discourse.]
Notions of "the real," and the million micro-shadings of subjectivity (the perspective of the filmmakers, the characters) that are attenuated in any contemporary film with aspirations towards naturalism, consumed my thoughts this year at the Sundance Film Festival. That, and often a certain puzzlement over directorial intent: Third acts often felt like a let-down, in films that had otherwise been exemplary displays of jaw-dropping talent. Too much plot. Not enough. Phantom motivations. Underbaked cookies. Did I miss something? Why was I, on a gut level, so disappointed?
I probably should have stuck around for the Q&A. But strangely enough, my reaction when I was troubled by a film was to let the mystery be, in hopes of circling back to it later on a second viewing, away from the festival crazy. With that experience in mind, I feel even stronger about the accomplishment of Matt Porterfield's I Used To Be Darker. »
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