When watching first-time director Shemie Reut's visceral examination of the influence sensationalist media has on a multiple-murder investigation, one is inevitably tempted to draw comparison with Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), not so much in the story it tells although there are obvious similarities at times but in the questions it poses for the viewer with respect to the media's influence on every aspect of our lives. Media today is unavoidable, all-pervasive; it pumps us with information much of it spurious and therefore has a major influence on the way we think, both as individuals and as a culture; it muddies the water as much as it enlightens, and can be used as an instrument of manipulation to either re-inforce prejudices or create them where they didn't previously exist. Of the two films, it is arguably student film-maker Reut's story while technically inferior to Stone's kaleidoscopic roller-coaster ride that puts the message across more skilfully and succinctly.
Michael Mauro plays Stefan van der Berg, a Belgian movie-maker living in New York, who is accused of the murder of nine people in two separate incidents. Having been apprehended emerging in a drunken stupor from the seedy bar in which five of the killings took place, and positively identified by thirty witnesses, the evidence against Stefan seems insurmountable. His weak defence is that he has no memory of the second incident, and that he was filming a drugs deal at the request of a local hood named Joey which turned sour during the first incident. Believing they have got their man, the police use the media's saturation coverage of the murders as an interrogative device with which to bully a confession out of Stefan that will fit in with their theory that he and Joey staged the initial murders to make a snuff movie they could exploit commercially, and that the second murders occurred when Stefan and Joey argued over the film.
The movie opens with a deliberately confusing sequence at the bar in which the killings took place. We are as confused as Stefan as he emerges from the bar: while he is descended upon by armed cops, we are besieged by a soundtrack of shrieking, groaning violins, and disjointed scenes filmed on a shaky hand-held camera. Reut leaves us in no doubt that we are entering a disturbing, nightmarish, almost Kafkaesque zone here, and that this will be no conventional police procedural flick.
Stefan is a man under intense pressure. He believes he is innocent, but he can't be sure (and neither can the viewer) because he has no recollection of the incident. In fact we never know for sure whether Stefan is guilty even the flashback of the incident at the movie's climax fails to decisively identify who pulled the trigger and we rely, as he does, on his conviction that he is a person who is simply not capable of such an atrocity. Such convictions, however, are placed under immense strain from everyone involved in the case. The interrogating police officer bombards him with images from the media circus, exposing him to TV and news articles that have already proclaimed him guilty, presenting him with interviews with former friends giving false statements to reporters in order to enjoy their moment in the limelight, and the strangers who claim to have intimate knowledge of him. Even his lawyer sees Stefan as little more than a route to the big time, and owns the company that buys the rights to his life story.
Reut examines the destructive influence all this has on Stefan's sanity with an unflinching eye. At times we are very conscious of the camera almost as a character in the film, an impartial observer offering Stefan no escape or relief from intrusive scrutiny; it zeroes in on eyes and mouths, on clipped nails, and adopts skewed angles; this may be as much about working within the constraints of a minuscule budget as it is a statement of the director's vision, but it is still a technique that works well for the most part. One small complaint is that there is sometimes a tendency towards self-indulgence on Reut's part; a habit of lingering on a particular shot too long on occasion, thus weakening its impact, that emphasises Reut's student status at the time he made this movie. The variable quality of the acting is another giveaway, but is generally of a decent enough standard to avoid spoiling the movie and Mauro and Eric Leffler as his shifty lawyer both turn in terrific performances.
16MM is a remarkable debut, one which suggests, in Przemyslaw Reut, a fresh, intelligent, and innovative talent.
Michael Mauro plays Stefan van der Berg, a Belgian movie-maker living in New York, who is accused of the murder of nine people in two separate incidents. Having been apprehended emerging in a drunken stupor from the seedy bar in which five of the killings took place, and positively identified by thirty witnesses, the evidence against Stefan seems insurmountable. His weak defence is that he has no memory of the second incident, and that he was filming a drugs deal at the request of a local hood named Joey which turned sour during the first incident. Believing they have got their man, the police use the media's saturation coverage of the murders as an interrogative device with which to bully a confession out of Stefan that will fit in with their theory that he and Joey staged the initial murders to make a snuff movie they could exploit commercially, and that the second murders occurred when Stefan and Joey argued over the film.
The movie opens with a deliberately confusing sequence at the bar in which the killings took place. We are as confused as Stefan as he emerges from the bar: while he is descended upon by armed cops, we are besieged by a soundtrack of shrieking, groaning violins, and disjointed scenes filmed on a shaky hand-held camera. Reut leaves us in no doubt that we are entering a disturbing, nightmarish, almost Kafkaesque zone here, and that this will be no conventional police procedural flick.
Stefan is a man under intense pressure. He believes he is innocent, but he can't be sure (and neither can the viewer) because he has no recollection of the incident. In fact we never know for sure whether Stefan is guilty even the flashback of the incident at the movie's climax fails to decisively identify who pulled the trigger and we rely, as he does, on his conviction that he is a person who is simply not capable of such an atrocity. Such convictions, however, are placed under immense strain from everyone involved in the case. The interrogating police officer bombards him with images from the media circus, exposing him to TV and news articles that have already proclaimed him guilty, presenting him with interviews with former friends giving false statements to reporters in order to enjoy their moment in the limelight, and the strangers who claim to have intimate knowledge of him. Even his lawyer sees Stefan as little more than a route to the big time, and owns the company that buys the rights to his life story.
Reut examines the destructive influence all this has on Stefan's sanity with an unflinching eye. At times we are very conscious of the camera almost as a character in the film, an impartial observer offering Stefan no escape or relief from intrusive scrutiny; it zeroes in on eyes and mouths, on clipped nails, and adopts skewed angles; this may be as much about working within the constraints of a minuscule budget as it is a statement of the director's vision, but it is still a technique that works well for the most part. One small complaint is that there is sometimes a tendency towards self-indulgence on Reut's part; a habit of lingering on a particular shot too long on occasion, thus weakening its impact, that emphasises Reut's student status at the time he made this movie. The variable quality of the acting is another giveaway, but is generally of a decent enough standard to avoid spoiling the movie and Mauro and Eric Leffler as his shifty lawyer both turn in terrific performances.
16MM is a remarkable debut, one which suggests, in Przemyslaw Reut, a fresh, intelligent, and innovative talent.
