Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I really really really want to see this movie. Check out this review:
greetings los hooligans...
This past Saturday night, September 11, I went to see what I felt would be an appropriate film, September Tapes, screening as part of the Boston Film Fetival. (it's a great little festival, very audience friendly. tonight i'm gonna try and get to silver city. i'll let you know if i do...)
I went to see this film with two girls, one of whom was sort of undecided on her opinion of the film and one of whom was pretty offended after it was over. me? well, my immediate response was, "It's a tough sell..."
Here's the thing about this film. The lines between reality and fiction are very blurry. these guys actually traveled to Afghanistan and filmed there for four week in the summer of 2002. It's a fictional story of a ex-military documentary filmmaker Don "Lars" Larson who travels to Afghanistan in what amounts to a search for Osama bin Ladin. He has a camera man, Sonny, and a translater, Wali. It quickly becomes apparant that Lars is not quite playing with a full deck so to speak, that he has a very serious agenda that the film is basically an excuse to help him carry out, and he will go to great and dangerously excessive lengths to get what he wants. In the interest of keeping this review spoiler free, i will not go into too much more detail than that, but over the course of the film, we see Lars unravel more and more and his film crew struggle to maintain their sanity and their safety as they go farther and farther "off the radar".
Tthe acting is not great. Lars' voiceovers and most any time he or Wali talks to the camera, they are somewhat melodramatic and over the top. And it, of course, has a certain "blair witch" feel to it, because it's all shot in digital handheld video, and they're kind of trying to make you think that this fictional story is real. The impressive thing comes in the fact that they do actually interact with alot of real Afghani people, including black market arms dealers, kids on the street, Wali's actual cousins in kabul, and real Northern Alliance commanders and troops. In fact, they got footage that no one else had been able to get, to the point where the U.S. Department of Defense confiscated their tapes for about 6 months and made them blur out some faces. The story of them making this movie is incredible. The director, Christian Johnston did Q&A afterwards (really nice guy, very friendly and open to criticism, although the audience response seemed fairly positive) and he told us some great stories, like how they got into the country using expired UN Press passes, traveled around in the trunks of cars, and how they were in the country for four weeks and saw no other journalists and saw no US soldiers except for 4 U.S. Delta Force Rangers. They have shots out in the desert of Northen Alliance forces and al Queda forces shooting at each other, and the most intense thing of all is that they didn't have/couldn't use any pyrotechnics to simulate gunfire (there are multiple times when the film crew finds themselves in the midst of a firefight) so instead they were loaned guns from the Northern Alliance and were actually shooting live rounds and rockets. You can literally see bullets whizzing past them. It's insane.
My friend who was offended was mostly offended at the approach of going to that country and shooting a fictional story while using real Afghani people and trying to make you think it's real. Her opinion was if you're gonna go to all the trouble to go there and meet these people, you should focus more on them, if not just shoot an actual documentary instead of this fictional story. I have to commend the filmmakers for taking extrodinary risks and going to extrodinary lengths to shoot a very compelling storyline. If the acting had been better, this would have been a great little film. The other big problem I had was similar to the problem I had with Adaptation. The whole point of that movie is telling this story that you think may or may not be based in truth, but by the end, the characters are in this ridiculous overblown situation that is clearly fictional. ( i really liked the idea of this, but I felt something got lost in the execution.) similarly, by the end of September Tapes, the characters are in this insane scenario that is very clearly staged, and since they've gone to such lengths before that to make you think it's all real, the end is somewhat unfulfilling, and would have been less jarring if the whole movie had been clearly fictional (as Adaptation was). There's a great little reveal at the very end, which is pretty clearly telegraphed throughout the movie (including in one particularly awful little monologue to the camera by Wali) and, again, if this movie hadn't taken the mocumentary approach, it would have been far more powerful.
This is definitely a movie that people should see, if only, like Farenheit 9/11, because it fosters good debate on an important subject. There's a fair amount of political commentary laced throughout the film, but it doesn't push any one opinion. Lars sort of becomes the embodiment of the brash American rushing in headfirst and taking stupid risks, but he also has very important and deep-seeded reasons for what he does, and he truly believes he's doing the right thing (sound familiar?). I would classify this as an incredibly ambitious yet flawed film that was admirably executed but, as I said, a tough sell.
I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.
hope that's helpful. i know you guys had your eye on this one. hopefully i'll have a silver city review for you tomorrow...
-DonnieDarker
Thanks for this one, Donnie, and definitely hit me with that SILVER CITY review when it’s ready.
"Moriarty" out.
