Although there are many films on serious subjects the techniques used are many and various. Here we have a script which places a group of people in a diner in peril of a gunman. By restricting our field of vision the film allows us to either imagine all that happened on trust, or allow our instinct to take us where the story teller wants us to go. There are many deft cinematic touches along the way coaxing us to understand how the many 'victims' of the opening crime scene, which is slowly revealed as the film progresses, cope with the trauma of closeness to death.
How we understand the trauma and the coping of the victims is left very much to each watching individual and for that I salute the production team. We are not encouraged to feel sympathy or empathy or pity or any other emotion. The film is as cold as the blood in the opening murder scene. And yet strangely this is not a hard film to watch perhaps because of the constant cutting between the various people involved. Yes there are moments when we may feel a little awkward but they seem accidental rather than deliberate.
The acting is excellent throughout. I would like to have given this film a high score because the actors deserve it, but it always falls short of the pivotal axiom that humans are unpredictable even when being predictable. At least it takes its subject seriously and for that it is to be admired.
And so I award it six out of ten.
How we understand the trauma and the coping of the victims is left very much to each watching individual and for that I salute the production team. We are not encouraged to feel sympathy or empathy or pity or any other emotion. The film is as cold as the blood in the opening murder scene. And yet strangely this is not a hard film to watch perhaps because of the constant cutting between the various people involved. Yes there are moments when we may feel a little awkward but they seem accidental rather than deliberate.
The acting is excellent throughout. I would like to have given this film a high score because the actors deserve it, but it always falls short of the pivotal axiom that humans are unpredictable even when being predictable. At least it takes its subject seriously and for that it is to be admired.
And so I award it six out of ten.