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starrsofringo
Reviews
Dreams of a Life (2011)
Poorly Conceived
After reading the description of this film I looked forward to a well delivered film about the life and times of a woman who was eventually found dead in her apartment.
Yes, the premise of finding out who she was and the life she had lived seemed like it would have provided an interesting journey for the viewers. Adding to the fact that not a single person had shown interest in her life when it ended and then not being found until 3 years later as a skeleton on a couch, the TV still running - made this seem like it may be interesting.
However, I am disappointed to say that this film just doesn't have what a decent documentary needs. It contains barely any real evidence of the woman's life, and she is only seen in a few photographs at one point in the film.
The story relies on some of her old acquaintances, who most obviously were not close friends with her. We are made to sit through endless assumptions and vague memories shot with a typical interview type backdrop throughout the entire film. Some of them just seem to just be there to get some screen time of their own and the film makers have been desperate enough to use basically anyone with any kind of connection to the victim.
To make this 'documentary' a complete failure is the reliance on dramatization. It's a terrible attempt at story telling, the acting is poor and to tread even more dirt into this attempt at documentary making the film makers have recreated the woman's apartment, recreated the police crew packing up the apartment in full chemical suits.
They also try to create a 'What if' scenarios by including a 'What if she was murdered?' theme to try and add more to it.
The movie feels empty and poorly conceived. There is just not enough real footage and real evidence to even hold together 30 minutes let alone 1.5 hours.
If you like your documentaries filled with acted dramatization, poor acting, film sets and montages created because they have no real footage of the events and a group of interviewees that were never close enough to the woman to help her in her times of need.
Then this is your kind of movie.