Change Your Image
tyson_vick
Reviews
The World Outside (2005)
A Whimsical Social Satire
Co-directed by Josh Lind and Kevin Phillips, The World Outside recently played on the big screen at the Hatch Audiovisual Arts Festival in Bozeman, Montana.
The film tells the story of two rival toy manufacturing plants built high atop a hill, who over the course of time have become bitter enemies due to the similarity of their products. The blue factory builds a fascinating toy called a Bango, which is a ball attached to a stick. The red factory presents a toy called a Swango, which is a ball attached to a string. Each factory remains embittered towards one another, until some unnamed person comes along and draws a line between each building which neither side may cross. All the factory workers are quite pleased with the situation, and the only animosity that surfaces between the toy companies is during break times when the plant workers stand on their side of the line and shout derisive comments at one another over whose product is more fun to play with. The story starts years later when a Bango drone needs a breath of fresh air and single-handedly destroys the factory by opening a window and allowing a crow to fly straight into the machinery. Undone by his mistake, he doesn't participate in the daily ritual of break time name calling. Standing on the sidelines and fondling the mangled bird, he notices a beautiful daydreaming stenographer from the Swango factory. They are keenly fascinated by one another, and when the workers return to work, he takes a huge risk under the watchful eyes of the Swango and Bango guards and crosses the line to go and find her.
After also destroying the Swango factory with the same bird, he finds the beautiful girl who disguises him in a red costume and fake moustache so he can stay and work in the Swango factory. But at break time he accidentally returns to the Bango side of the line, each side recognizes him as theirs, one because of the worker, the other because of the outfit, and a riot between the workers ensues. Each company believes that their own men would never cross the line, and the hero is rejected by both sides. In the end the girl and the boy find happiness together in the world outside that of the embittered factories, which assumedly crumble and fall in the later due to the accidental interference of the crow.
The film is an obvious mix of Dr. Suess, Super Mario, Brazil, and many early silent films where the costumes and the broad acting are integral to the story. While there is dialogue, none of it is pertinent, and the entire story of the boy and girl is told silently
or rather with very loud sound effects. What is most interesting about the film, though, is the promise of the filmmakers. They have lofty goals, many of which come up short in The World Outside. The movie has a frenetic pace, with outrageous machinery, but the claustrophobic feel that is needed is lost when the cinematographer chooses wide angles to reveal the size of factory, instead of close shots to establish the closed in feelings of the workers. Similarly, the dividing line between the factories is only shown briefly in the establishing shots, but is of such importance that it should have as much screen time as the main characters. There are entire scenes devoted to characters not crossing the line, but when the line is never seen, its power is lost. The actors who play the worker drones are having great fun during the course of the film, but only one woman who plays a nosy Swango typist seems to grasp that they must teeter precariously between being amusing and being violently threatening. With constant reminders from the executives of the Toy companies that "Slow and Steady gets you fired" and "This is not the correct time to panic. The correct time to panic is never", it's hard to believe that the worker drones would be having any fun at all, or that they would even consider their ridiculous break-time insults anything other than serious.
But for first time filmmakers to even tackle the complexities of elaborate production design, inanimate main characters, and getting a huge cast to understand the subtlety of drawing out serious emotion from behind broad comedy, it's really very inspiring. Instead of the tired short films about depressing people involved in depressing situations involving guns, drugs, money and artists trying to "find" themselves, we get a film about breaking free of the confines of society to find love and to fine oneself in a world of sameness. The World Outside works as a metaphor for the way a high-schooler feels when he is reprimanded for being different or liking an un-popular girl and breaks free by simply not caring what others think, or the way an adult feels trapped by the sameness of his daily work or daily world events and finds a welcome escape in his family or friends. It's not the moral that being different is good for the sake of being different, but more that being different is inevitable, and you can't force square peg through a round hole. The film also tells us that you'll never obtain anything of value if you're too afraid to take risks.
Mr. Lind and Mr. Phillips show great promise, and I eagerly await their next work.
An Appetite for Bernard Brady (2005)
A Creepy and Amusing Dark Comedy
The audience reaction was superb for young filmmaker Chris Mangano's film "An Appetite for Bernard Brady" while screening at the Hatch Audiovisual Arts Festival in Bozeman, Montana.
"An Appetite for Bernard Brady" tells the story of a common man who lives a contented life, until he finds an old illustrated Bible picture of Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac on an altar, and he is put in mind of an old feeling long since buried. He suppresses himself until a co-worker shows him an online snuff film of a man being torn apart by two trucks, and he can contain himself no longer. Bernard Brady grew up with a keen fascination with death and a distinct longing to become one with the victim. Bernard Brady has a strong need to be useful. Bernard Brady has a strong need to be killed.
After going online to discover more outlawed fetish videos, Bernard Brady finds companionship in an chat room for cannibals, asking what wines they would chose if they were going to have him for dinner. He realizes that he will never feel fulfilled unless he is consumed by another person.
When his co-worker is fired for downloading more than just snuff films, Bernard feels that everything in life is temporary. If a trusted employee of 25 years can be fired for a slight transgression, there's no safety anywhere, and after a brief struggle with himself, Bernard Brady sends a video to a cannibal friend online.
"Hello, my name is Bernard Brady, and I want you to eat me." The film closes with an elegant stranger having dinner, and also a fine wine with his dinner.
The film is an intellectual discussion on the justification of sin, treading skillfully between supporting and condemning its own protagonist. Tactful, graceful and witty, director Chris Mangano takes an unpleasant subject and makes it enjoyable for the common viewer. What would normally surprise and offend the audience, delightfully and eerily unfolds in front of the viewer. Told almost entirely in silence, the actors who portray Bernard Brady, both young and old, convey torrents of thought and emotion through the eyes. On top of a strong cast, the film boasts an acute attention to detail. For example, there isn't a shot in the movie where Bernard Brady isn't eating. This constant focus on consumption underlies and foreshadows what's to come, and it's also very funny.
"An Appetite for Bernard Brady" is focused, well thought out, artistic and amusing. It provokes thought, and is an exciting teaser of things yet to come from the talented cast and crew.
Smart Card (2005)
Eye opening, funny and dark science fiction
Smart Card is a science fiction film about the horrors of living with modern technology. A businessman is on his way home from work in a car that drives itself, and an artificial intelligence program called Server making all of his daily decisions on where to get gas and what food to pick up at the store. Both the car and Server are run by the information on the Smart Card which looks very much like a modern credit card. The first problem arises when the business man decides he simply wants to head home and Server insists that it would be better to get gas and groceries immediately.
Clearly not in control of his own life, the man stops for gas and when he goes inside to pay he and the clerk are accosted by a Shakespearian hobo who wants to pay for a candy bar with money instead of with a smart card. When he is denied service, the businessman decides the best way to get the guy to leave is to buy the candy bar for him. His attempt fails, though, when the clerk informs him (through the smart card's info) that buying a candy bar "wouldn't be the smart decision". The businessman is irritated to find that buying the candy bar doesn't fit in with his physicians dietary restrictions, and he is forced to buy the invariably healthier Smart Bar.
The situation worsens when the hobo stealthily steals the businessman's Smart Card after a long bout of moralizing about being controlled by the government. Left without his card, Server doesn't recognize the businessman as the owner of the card, the smart card help phone won't recognize him as existing, and the gas station clerk ignores him completely. Desperate, he smashes his car window, and is arrested by the police.
Presented to a fantastically creepy Smart Card official, the businessman decides he doesn't want to have a Smart Card anymore after all the problems he's been having with it. The official says, "Is there anything we can do to make it up to you? Give you a ride home perhaps? Just give the officer your address." Suddenly the businessman realizes he doesn't know where he lives. That information was stored on the card. The official asks for his wife's phone number so they can ask her, and the businessman realizes the Smart Card is the one who knows that as well. Broken, the businessman agrees to utilize Smart Corporation's newest technology of having the card installed as a microchip straight into the hand.
The last shot of the movie shows the Smart Card in the businessman's had being used to purchase gas. The hand is then tossed aside, severed, as the businessman's car drives away. Steeped in blood, the businessman crawls across the pavement to his hand.
Smart Card is a smart movie that will make you laugh, think, and then start to worry about the dangers of letting technology get the best of you. The film doesn't come off as a preachy fable or a dire warning, but more of a "this could really happen" scenario, which allows the audience to be entertained while their thoughts are provoked at the same time.
The film has great production design and a terrific cast of supporting characters with special mention going to the villain, the gas station clerk and the help-line woman, who are all fairly creepy underneath their consumer friendly appearances.
This film is well worth seeing if you can get a chance. Whenever director James Oxford decides to make a feature, I'll be queuing to see it.