April 24, 2008

We are the Strange (2007)

Who cares that it doesn't make sense as long as it looks good. I bet that's what the director, along with the people who let him play his little film at the various festivals, had in mind when making/watching the film. To be honest, there are much worse things out there, and despite this little feature being far from perfect, I must give the guy credit for achieving this sort of thing on his own on basically no budget. If you look at any stills from the movie it will look amazing. As the tagline says - "Monsters, Inc. meets The Nightmare Before Christmas inside of a retro Japanese video game." - one would be inclined to agree looking at the stills alone. The sound is nicely representative of this as well, being reminiscent of oldskool mods and demos/intros from the 80's/90's. Lots of bleeps and distorted lo-fi samples, but amplified, HD-ed and 5.1-ed, which makes every 8-bit stomp rumble through the cinema speakers and through your body. Overall it is an interesting and commendable feat, though unfortunately not for everybody. I can't say that it's good, as at times it became tiresome and repetitive, but for what it is I say it's a worthy achievement. Maybe with some re-editing and more streamlined continuity + narrative structure and revised dialogue it might work better, but then again, I'm not one to expect the creator's artistic vision to change. I just got the impression that he himself was not sure of what he was going for and knew more what he wanted it to LOOK like than what he wanted it to BE.