Glucedee
It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.
cynthia_h_49509
This was a charming,romantic film. I really liked the two lead characters,played by William McInness and Justine Clark, and could empathize with them easily.The screenwriter,Sarah Watt, did an excellent job giving us enough information about each secondary character to sustain our interest. The film is more about the choices we make during our life than about death.Even the less sympathetic characters, such as Andy, were portrayed in such a way that you could understand their emotions,even if you couldn't full sympathize with them. The cartooning and artwork added another element to the movie that kept my interest.I would recommend it to fans of independent films who like realistic characters in realistic settings presented in an unusual way.
joeneto-1
A shoot in our stomach. This movie is visceral, emotional and preserves a unique sense of humor...and also can make you feel very uncomfortable..a very human and touching story...believable. Most of all this a believable story... I watched this movie yesterday at the 30th International Movie Festival here in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and had a surprise to see such an interesting and touching Australian movie. By bonding creativity and humanity in a strong history it captivated me. The anguish is around and many lost souls try to find their way in life fighting all kinds of adversities. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Good actors too! They show us creativity in a in depth tragical and casual history. And the insertion of the girls thoughts in painting format inserted in the narrative was very clever. Great Movie!
jim-371
I concur with Mia-38's comment. This is an absorbing film, tastefully executed and rewarding to watch. Death is a daily topic in all media, part of which is shown in the film by the short animated sequences. This film takes us to what happens in our lives before that final event, death. One question raised is whether a particular death is accidental or possibly suicide. It has often been said that movies are a reactive medium. This film is sparse in dialog and much is told through expressions of some really fine acting. I believe this film will become a classic with time and be honored by many critics who on review will begin to appreciate the finesse and delicate technique of its creator. Please see this film and in so doing you will support a courageous distributor and a talented movie maker. Jim
roland-104
Here's the latest entry in the "web-of-life, luck, and loss" film derby that has recently become either an overheated fashion among filmmakers or an emerging genre, depending upon how you look at it.Two things make this one more noteworthy than most of its ilk. The characters are nearly all distinctively etched, yet none is an oddball, someone cooked up merely for eccentricity's sake. And the writer-director, Sarah Watt, has succeeded brilliantly in one of the toughest tasks in film-making: representing the inner experience of people – their thoughts and fantasies – visually, cinematically, without resort to soliloquies, dialogue or voiceovers to convey such interior events.Ms. Watt has been making short animated films for over 15 years, and she uses her animation skills to great advantage in this, her first feature length, narrative movie. She concentrates her efforts toward interiority on the two most central characters (there are about a dozen altogether), and so will I. Meryl (Justine Clarke) is a water colorist by avocation. Her father died just two weeks ago. Then she witnesses a man struck dead by a passing freight train.In the wake of these events and another unconnected to her, a horrific train accident elsewhere in the country, Meryl begins to imagine brief catastrophic scenes at every turn, in which she herself dies a violent death. We are shown these flashes of vivid visual imagery, which always take the form of animated watercolor paintings, in a style like those she makes in her spare time (this is where Ms. Watts's animation skills come into play).Nick (William McInnes) is a photographer with the local paper who covers the accidental death caused by the freight train that Meryl witnessed. His father died about a year ago. And he has learned only today, the day of the accident, that he has testicular cancer. We witness his preoccupation with his condition, which, quite appropriately, takes the form of vivid colored still photos of his cancer, shown in rapid succession, and moving pictures of tumor proliferation and the like. He also begins to notice skin lesions and other evidence of abnormalities or illness in other people, and, again, we see in photographic images Nick's preoccupying fantasies about the decline of these people that he imagines.Meryl and Nick eventually become a couple near the end, though only through pure luck does one of them avoid probable sudden death. I won't wear you out by trying to recount the other characters and their stories. But they are absorbing, especially the angry, grieving partner of the man killed by the train, the devastated train engineer, and a hotheaded reporter colleague of Nick's and the two women in his life.The film is not without problems. In flashbacks, Nick's Dad talks directly into the camera to us a few times; these are unwise and disconcerting little scenes that should have been left on the editing floor. The photography is undistinguished, apart from the fantasy scenes, as is the soundtrack. That said, I think Ms. Watt has real promise as a narrative film director; she appears to work well with actors, and her own imagination shines. My grade: A- 9/10.
