Nine Meals from Chaos (2018 Video) User Reviews

Awful. Very Disappointed.

[Juicy_Kumquat · 1/10 · 27 October 2019]

As someone who helped fund a few of Mr. Noels movies through indiegogo (including this one), I can say this was money completely wasted.

Ivan Noel is extremely talented; writing, directing, casting, composing, you name it. His movies have been top notch, and coming off one of his best, La Tutora (The Tutor), I expected to be treated to another amazing feature.

What I got is a bunch of children wandering around for an hour in a half with no real story-line and a narrator that continually preaches at me about how awful and destructive mankind is.

The camera work is super shaky (found footage/documentary style) which is off-putting. Apparently this is supposed to be a fake documentary, as at the end we see a horribly acted interview with the fake documentarian.

The scenery is tremendous. Absolutely gorgeous. And some great camera shots, unfortunately not enough or used an any meaningful manner. What I wish Noel could have done with his locations.

If this was your introduction to Ivan Noel you would think he were an amateur and might pass on his other work.

Pass on this, HARD pass on this, but DO see his other work. His best in my opinion Brecha, In Your Absence, and my favorite, his version of Turn of the Screw called La Tutora. Of course They Returned, Children of the Night, and Primary! were also excellent. I look forward to seeing Rejected and Lamb of God.

I have never written a bad review or given a a one star to my knowledge but this gets it. I hope Mr. Noel understands. He is one of those directors you can reliably see or buy everything they make as you KNOW it will be great. Its a shame this film is now in his repertoire.

Darkly told story unhelped by repeated interruptions by a narrator

[dstrorm-51534 · 2/10 · 12 January 2021]

Generally speaking, a good story should be able to tell itself without a narrator having to provide consistent descriptions on what is going on onscreen. Apparently, this story cannot do this.

Further, the narrator in question seems inspired by Thomas Hobbes idea that humans are inherently bad and will do anything to advance their own interests because they are cruel, selfish and self-interested all of the time. The result is that not only is the film's narrator intrusive and monotonous, but he's markedly off-putting, even suggesting at one point that eating worms and being canabalistic are more nutritious than the fares provided by modern agriculture and animal production.

I'm giving a two star review rather than a one star and even considered giving it three, because the kids do a good enough job with the direction they were obviously given, but in the end watching a group of preteens act out a world of Machiavellian nihilism with the grating monotone of an irritating narrator who can't keep his mouth shut talking over all of it because he feels the story cannot tell itself is simply unplesant.

Disappointed

[jcurtis-25155 · 1/10 · 27 March 2019]

Sorry - this is nothing more than rubbish. And I am an Ivan Noel fan. Don't waste your money on this FVD.

Absolutely horrendous

[idonotexist · 1/10 · 22 April 2023]

This sounded like a lord of the flies or even mad max like picture and that drew me in. Unfortunately, 2 minutes in, it was clear it was anything but.

This is not a movie. This is at best a narration by a horrible narrator with background moving images to fill the space. This calling itself a movie is an insult of its own. The footage is in monochrome with a lot of cheap black makeup to simulate dirt (very badly at it) and random scenes of nothing of value.

The narration is never ending almost always has nothing to do with anything on the screen. Best i can decode this style as is they wanted to TALK about some apocalyptic event but also wanted to show something apocalyptic on the screen. This is a 90 minute discount TED talk written by people who nobody is interested in.

At the end of the movie right before credits, director/writer come on and keeps on talking about how he doesnt see the children making in the movie world. Wait what? For extra hilarity, there is alternate sound track superimposed on top of the ENTIRE movie with him talking about the movie non stop. I dare anybody to try to make it through this.

The main sound is some horrible narrator talking about random stuff, the alternate is the director talking about it as if he just created the most amazing masterpiece ever conceived.

Cast. Horrible. Random kids they assembled from a playground but i'm not going to be too harsh because this isn't even a movie. Adults. They are evil and they seem to want to catch the kids for some stupid reason. They all look like wife beaters from a 4th rate horror movie set in a rural trailer. Acting basically does not exist here.

Decor. Some fields and a railroad yard. Since it is all monochrome it all gets washed in and looks the same. It might be grass, it might be mud.. we can't tell. Just bad.

Let me cut this short and see if there is anything good here to be taken away... No. There is nothing. This is school project of somebody's thoughts with bad background footage rolling around. I will reiterate once more, this is not a movie. Waste of your time to the absolute max.