28 Jan 2013

Strike! ★★★☆☆



Review of 'Strike!' which can be found here on Vimeo.

Length: 05:00
Written & directed by Nadia de Castro
Genre: Experimental
Date: 2010
Rating: ★★★☆☆

Logline: Visual representation of a guy remembering things. 

Actually, the filmmakers loglined this as "The search for a lost memory in one man's mind, told through visual metaphors", which, beside the inappropriate use of an apostrophe, probably explains the film it a bit more but I'm not sure it's something I would've picked up on without knowing that before hand. Either they've written a rubbish logline or they've failed to clearly present their concept. 

I've categorised this as experimental even though there's a linear story line to it. It all seems to kick off when Marc Barnes, who stars as the man whose head we're in, asks himself a question "What does the stranger say?" and then proceeds to rack his brain for the answer. I quite liked some of the simple representations of someone searching for a thought but also found it hard to follow. I barely heard the question first of all as the music soundtrack is at a higher level, then lots of small words on bits of paper, a magazine which I wasn't sure what the relevance was and some gibberish dialogue at the end doesn't exactly make this straight forward viewing. It all left me thinking I wasn't clever enough to understand this inside joke. 

Saying that, it's been shot well. There's nice camera quality, dynamic transition shots, good lighting, set design, and edit (if pacing was a little on the slow side). Unfortunately, even though this is supposed to be an glimpse into an inward world, with Barnes pausing a lot to consider things, his thought process remains pretty much internal and not on screen as I think was intended.  

Best Bit: Camera work, shot composition, lighting. 

Worst Bit: Hard to make out what's going on, visually and audibly. 

Final thought: I'm thinking it but I'm not going to tell you it. 

Read a condensed review of this film on Twitter here.

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