First of all: Michael Goduti. I like him. I hope he makes it.
But I watched a fair amount of these, and I had a hard time deciding whether I liked them or not. Some of the more cohesive, less ambiguous narratives like Bridge and Table I really enjoyed. But American Spirits and Soldier didn’t do a lot for me. I was neutral about Circles.
I really liked Table, because it blended ambiguity and narrative together in the most compelling way. I loved how at the end, she took a sip of the wine, they positioned the camera so that we couldn’t get the full read of her facial expression. I thought that one was the best shot of any that I watched.
American Spirits took the ambiguity too far. Two friends walking down the street, lost and smoking cigarettes, tosses the empty box in slow-motion to the ground. Then school children run past, also still in slow motion. This felt pretty cliché. I’m not entirely sure what point they were trying to make, but it felt heavy-handed.
Soldier also didn’t do a lot for me. Three seconds in to the film I thought to myself “Oh, they’re already dead and somebody is visiting them,” so that took away from the subtlety of emotion that followed.
Bridge was pretty touching. Like Table, it was shot in a compelling way. It was mysterious.
The best takeaway I can get from this is how much of a story you need to tell. They told us next to nothing about any of these characters, but they made (mostly) coherent stories based around them. I’ll keep that in mind for my PSA.