This movie consists of two parts which are related only by the director's attempt to make inverse points. Part 1 was called "fiction" and it was about 20 minutes long. Part 2 was called "nonfiction" and it was ... well, the rest of 70 minutes.
After seeing this movie, I understand why people usually make trilogies or omnibus films with three parts: for the same reason that major musical pieces have introduction, middle, and repeat (and an optional coda)-- the need to wrap-up... It isn't that we LEARNED to like the 3-part structures; but because with 2 points, you can only draw a line; for anything 3-dimensional, you need another point, a reference. If at least the first and the second part were of equal length, the movie would have been better, although it would have still felt like 2 movies. But at least you wouldn't feel that one story is less important than other. If the director felt that the second story was so much more important, why even bother with the first story? If the point of the director was exactly to trivialize the first story, he should have arranged his movie differently, because it doesn't flow well as a movie.
In "fiction", we learn that any nonfiction written as a story becomes fiction. The young author is not being true to herself out of confusion; she thinks she needs to be cool to write, and is trying way too hard; her insecurities are crushed by those same people she's trying to use to achieve coolness.
In "nonfiction", we see a guy who wanted to be an actor when he was a teenager, succeed in making a hit documentary about a boy who wants to be an actor; the documentary feels real but funny, while the boy's life is completely artificial. But I can't make a clear parallel with "fiction". Is it that any story drawn from a fiction is a non-fiction? Or is it that in this case simply life is unreal and story is real? Or am I too rational?
Exploitation of geeks and minorities in life and in art and of course their revenge is a key lite motif in this movie, as well as in other Solondz movies, I love the cynicism on the politically incorrect side. The heart of both stories is no matter how you write a story, people find in it what horrifies them the most - be careful what you write about, since you're writing for an audience, and the audience might not get it... or it might get something else out of it.
So there is a lot of wonderful acting, good cynicism, and all in all, a good potential in the material, my vote is only a 6 because the movie doesn't flow well, the parallels (conclusions) are unclear, and the third or concluding part is
Yeah, what??? Oh. Yes. It's missing.
After seeing this movie, I understand why people usually make trilogies or omnibus films with three parts: for the same reason that major musical pieces have introduction, middle, and repeat (and an optional coda)-- the need to wrap-up... It isn't that we LEARNED to like the 3-part structures; but because with 2 points, you can only draw a line; for anything 3-dimensional, you need another point, a reference. If at least the first and the second part were of equal length, the movie would have been better, although it would have still felt like 2 movies. But at least you wouldn't feel that one story is less important than other. If the director felt that the second story was so much more important, why even bother with the first story? If the point of the director was exactly to trivialize the first story, he should have arranged his movie differently, because it doesn't flow well as a movie.
In "fiction", we learn that any nonfiction written as a story becomes fiction. The young author is not being true to herself out of confusion; she thinks she needs to be cool to write, and is trying way too hard; her insecurities are crushed by those same people she's trying to use to achieve coolness.
In "nonfiction", we see a guy who wanted to be an actor when he was a teenager, succeed in making a hit documentary about a boy who wants to be an actor; the documentary feels real but funny, while the boy's life is completely artificial. But I can't make a clear parallel with "fiction". Is it that any story drawn from a fiction is a non-fiction? Or is it that in this case simply life is unreal and story is real? Or am I too rational?
Exploitation of geeks and minorities in life and in art and of course their revenge is a key lite motif in this movie, as well as in other Solondz movies, I love the cynicism on the politically incorrect side. The heart of both stories is no matter how you write a story, people find in it what horrifies them the most - be careful what you write about, since you're writing for an audience, and the audience might not get it... or it might get something else out of it.
So there is a lot of wonderful acting, good cynicism, and all in all, a good potential in the material, my vote is only a 6 because the movie doesn't flow well, the parallels (conclusions) are unclear, and the third or concluding part is
Yeah, what??? Oh. Yes. It's missing.