Tuesday, October 09, 2007

this week: BOSTON FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL!


I'm gonna *try* to see it all, except MERCY, which I've already seen. If you're gonna catch MERCY, have a looksee at the festival's blurb to prep/steel yourself.

My take... MERCY is an indie film about a newly released ex-convict trying to begin his life anew on the outside. It is made far from easy, as at every turn he seems to encounter reminders of his crime... Is it society, his own conscience, or a true haunting that persecutes him? Although at times clunky and heavy-handed in style, grinding the monotonous, repetitive nature of the man's new so-called life into the audience's senses, I feel like I get the purpose of those sequences—the creation of a cinematic experience of the character's own living hell. Perhaps the association gives MERCY a bit too much credit, but in concept, and aspiration, it reminded me more than a little of the living hell created in the film THE CROSSING GUARD (a film I really dig). An indie producer's first attempt at directing, you'll pick up a taste of Lynchian style as well as many noir element. Unfortunately, the director may be a bit too successful at re-creating the living hell of the film's subject for the audience. Good ideas and idea potential, a great lead actor, a bunch of remarkable stark and striking visuals and locations, but for more than a few people, its relentlessness, and some creative leaps in logic, are probably hard to take.

Keep on creepin on~

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