It's probably not fair to try and quantify this movie in the traditional sense of critique. The effort and subject is only for those who can betray their sense of cynicism long enough to just let it wash over them. The two principles are committed, talented and believers. Beyond some typical tropes to keep the uninitiated involved, there is quality cinematography, dynamic of story and wonderful editing. Lots of perfect moments on what must have been a limited budget (just a guess). If you have lived a life, you know these people, and maybe, they are you? Without hope, there is no life. So lets live this life and enjoy the longings.
7 Reviews
A very unusual couple in a road movie
Red-12525 November 2022
Unidentified Objects (2022) was co-written and directed by Juan Felipe Zuleta.
Sarah Hay portrays Winona, a young woman who is obsessed with travel to Canada for complex reasons. Matthew Jeffers plays Peter, a gay man with dwarfism.
The link is that Peter has a car, and Winona needs a car. Peter won't give Winona the car, but he will drive with her to Canada. What follows is an interesting movie that goes in unusual directions.
The film has an excellent IMDb rating of 7.7. I thought that it was even better than that, and rated it 9.
We saw this movie as part of Rochester's excellent ImageOut, the LGBTQ Film Festival.
Sarah Hay portrays Winona, a young woman who is obsessed with travel to Canada for complex reasons. Matthew Jeffers plays Peter, a gay man with dwarfism.
The link is that Peter has a car, and Winona needs a car. Peter won't give Winona the car, but he will drive with her to Canada. What follows is an interesting movie that goes in unusual directions.
The film has an excellent IMDb rating of 7.7. I thought that it was even better than that, and rated it 9.
We saw this movie as part of Rochester's excellent ImageOut, the LGBTQ Film Festival.
A joy
BandSAboutMovies12 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Peter (Matthew Jeffers) is an alien in so many worlds based on how people see both his dwarfism and sexual identity as a gay man. Therefore, he avoids nearly everyone. But his neighbor Winona (Sarah Hay, The Mortuary Collection) pushes past that and asks him for a ride to Canada to meet up with the aliens that abducted her in her teens and go back home with them. The money she offers helps.
Director Juan Felipe Zuleta and writer Leland Frankel have put together a film that defies expectations. Sure, it's a road trip where two mismatched people come together and learn from each other, yet it's so good as works its way to its conclusion, with strange moments out of reality as Peter meets an alien cop or how he comes to understand Winona's sex work career.
Neither character is presented as perfect and that's what's perfect about this movie. And the audio atmosphere created by Zuleta's brother Sebastian gives this a sound all its own in the same way that the film looks like nothing else. Jeffers and Hay are such a perfect match as two people who should not be. I wish I had more time to spend with their characters, which is the mark of a great movie.
I had the opportunity to speak to director andco-writer Juan Felipe Zuleta and Sebastian Zuleta, who scored the film. It really added a lot to my enjoyment of this film.
B&S About Movies: One of the things that was really striking in your film was that there are a lot of ways to look at aliens, whether it's people that are outsiders within their culture because of their bodies or their choices. Was that intentional?
Juan Felipe Zuleta: Yes, absolutely. It's funny that you say that because Sebastian and I are from born and raised in Colombia and we both had green cards for some time that had a number that identified us as aliens. Official aliens of the United States. (laughs)
Since then, I've been incredibly interested in the word alien as a way to categorize outsiders, misfits, and people who don't belong. People who are alien to a territory or a place and yet, there are so many of them. Unidentified Objects is about those aliens in the world, those on Earth and those out of Earth. It's kind of like an exploration of that what that means.
B&S: There's a real feeling of the other here. Some things are real or maybe not real. Like when the alien cop pulls them over, you wonder, did it happen?
Juan: That's definitely a language that was initiated from the script. I wanted that ambiguity to reinforce the way we filmed it and also come through the music escape that my brother Sebastian created. It was the tone in general. I do feel I tend to love movies that have ambiguity and that manage to keep that tone throughout.
B&S: The music is perfect.
Sebastian Zuleta: It was all tailor-made. The process was by far -- I've worked with my brother on many, many projects since like his very first short film -- and this is by far the best collaboration I've had with with with him. Just seeing him grow as a director, making a feature but also just the process. Since from the onset from when I got the script, I read it and I started already talking to my brother and brainstorming about sounds and where do we want to go. And then aliens!
I've never really worked with analog synthesizers so I just dove in and started getting a few. I was sending sounds to Juan and getting feedback during production. By the time they finished, we had a sizeable library of original sounds for the film. We had themes and ideas and figured out where they should go. This allowed my brother while he was working with the editor to place some things and have anchors throughout.
Then, I got some cuts and started writing to picture.
One of the things I enjoyed most was finding out that whenever you'd use an adjective to describe music, everyone still interpreted it differently. Even though I've known my brother all my life, like how we see and hear music is different. How can we fine-tune and understand one another better? So if he says, I want it to be dark or emotional, what does that mean in music? What does cold mean? What chord progressions can do that?
It was fun to keep digging deeper into our relationship not only as brothers but as filmmakers.
B&S: You also have a famous song in the bar scene.
Juan: The surreal elements are inspired by David Lynch, like how he used music in Blue Velvet. I knew from the script that I wanted to use Roy Orbison, just as Lynch did in his films. "Crying" was actually the song we used on set. It's just an emotion and yes, that's the name of the song, but there are so many layers behind it. It was perfect for the tone we were trying to accomplish.
There are other songs that are alien-like. I wish we could have had some David Bowie in the film, but there is some Electric Light Orchestra.
B&S: Other than Lynch, who influences you?
Juan: So particularly in this film, I think Lynch is obvious. A little bit of Luis Buñuel. There are a lot of movies in the road trip genre but I love Little Miss Sunshine and Y tu mamá también. They are two of my favorite movies ever, especially Y tu mamá también because it isn't overdesigned or overedited.
To get an alien point of view or an elevated state, I decided to shoot with anamorphic lenses so then I started to stylize it a little bit more. That comes from influences like the Coen Brothers. If you look at The Big Lebowski there are some sequences there that inspired me.
What I like about Lynch is the little messages, the dark comedy, the dry humor. The characters seem to be super self-conscious and self-aware about. Their own circumstances. So it's not always funny, but his movies seem to be more tragedies that just happen to be funny. (laughs)
Last, but not least, the ambiguity that we spoke about earlier, including the tone of the music there's a lot of inspiration there from Jóhann Jóhannsson, like how you can allow the audience's imagination to play detective and make the music part of the storytelling.
My brother went to the NASA library as well, so there are times in this movie when you are hearing what it sounds like to be in space. He processed the sounds of what it sounds like on Mars and they're in the movie.
B&S: Have you guys ever taken a road trip together?
Juan: I was probably like seven. Our parents had a 1994 Toyota and we drove from our hometown to the Colombian coast to a city called Santa Marta which is a fourteen-hour drive. It was very much Y tu mamá también. (laughs)
Sebastian: All our luggage was on the top with the surfboards. (laughs)
Juan: I want to say that my brother is a genius. He would go off in his little world and then he would email me sounds at night and I would be like like a little kid opening a gift and Christmas.
(To Sebastian) Every time you send me stuff and that was so special.
We poured our hearts into it and I hope it comes through.
Sebastian: My brother is the best brother in the world. It really is a blessing to have such a talented brother. He's a serious filmmaker and I get to work with him. I feel lucky.
Director Juan Felipe Zuleta and writer Leland Frankel have put together a film that defies expectations. Sure, it's a road trip where two mismatched people come together and learn from each other, yet it's so good as works its way to its conclusion, with strange moments out of reality as Peter meets an alien cop or how he comes to understand Winona's sex work career.
Neither character is presented as perfect and that's what's perfect about this movie. And the audio atmosphere created by Zuleta's brother Sebastian gives this a sound all its own in the same way that the film looks like nothing else. Jeffers and Hay are such a perfect match as two people who should not be. I wish I had more time to spend with their characters, which is the mark of a great movie.
I had the opportunity to speak to director andco-writer Juan Felipe Zuleta and Sebastian Zuleta, who scored the film. It really added a lot to my enjoyment of this film.
B&S About Movies: One of the things that was really striking in your film was that there are a lot of ways to look at aliens, whether it's people that are outsiders within their culture because of their bodies or their choices. Was that intentional?
Juan Felipe Zuleta: Yes, absolutely. It's funny that you say that because Sebastian and I are from born and raised in Colombia and we both had green cards for some time that had a number that identified us as aliens. Official aliens of the United States. (laughs)
Since then, I've been incredibly interested in the word alien as a way to categorize outsiders, misfits, and people who don't belong. People who are alien to a territory or a place and yet, there are so many of them. Unidentified Objects is about those aliens in the world, those on Earth and those out of Earth. It's kind of like an exploration of that what that means.
B&S: There's a real feeling of the other here. Some things are real or maybe not real. Like when the alien cop pulls them over, you wonder, did it happen?
Juan: That's definitely a language that was initiated from the script. I wanted that ambiguity to reinforce the way we filmed it and also come through the music escape that my brother Sebastian created. It was the tone in general. I do feel I tend to love movies that have ambiguity and that manage to keep that tone throughout.
B&S: The music is perfect.
Sebastian Zuleta: It was all tailor-made. The process was by far -- I've worked with my brother on many, many projects since like his very first short film -- and this is by far the best collaboration I've had with with with him. Just seeing him grow as a director, making a feature but also just the process. Since from the onset from when I got the script, I read it and I started already talking to my brother and brainstorming about sounds and where do we want to go. And then aliens!
I've never really worked with analog synthesizers so I just dove in and started getting a few. I was sending sounds to Juan and getting feedback during production. By the time they finished, we had a sizeable library of original sounds for the film. We had themes and ideas and figured out where they should go. This allowed my brother while he was working with the editor to place some things and have anchors throughout.
Then, I got some cuts and started writing to picture.
One of the things I enjoyed most was finding out that whenever you'd use an adjective to describe music, everyone still interpreted it differently. Even though I've known my brother all my life, like how we see and hear music is different. How can we fine-tune and understand one another better? So if he says, I want it to be dark or emotional, what does that mean in music? What does cold mean? What chord progressions can do that?
It was fun to keep digging deeper into our relationship not only as brothers but as filmmakers.
B&S: You also have a famous song in the bar scene.
Juan: The surreal elements are inspired by David Lynch, like how he used music in Blue Velvet. I knew from the script that I wanted to use Roy Orbison, just as Lynch did in his films. "Crying" was actually the song we used on set. It's just an emotion and yes, that's the name of the song, but there are so many layers behind it. It was perfect for the tone we were trying to accomplish.
There are other songs that are alien-like. I wish we could have had some David Bowie in the film, but there is some Electric Light Orchestra.
B&S: Other than Lynch, who influences you?
Juan: So particularly in this film, I think Lynch is obvious. A little bit of Luis Buñuel. There are a lot of movies in the road trip genre but I love Little Miss Sunshine and Y tu mamá también. They are two of my favorite movies ever, especially Y tu mamá también because it isn't overdesigned or overedited.
To get an alien point of view or an elevated state, I decided to shoot with anamorphic lenses so then I started to stylize it a little bit more. That comes from influences like the Coen Brothers. If you look at The Big Lebowski there are some sequences there that inspired me.
What I like about Lynch is the little messages, the dark comedy, the dry humor. The characters seem to be super self-conscious and self-aware about. Their own circumstances. So it's not always funny, but his movies seem to be more tragedies that just happen to be funny. (laughs)
Last, but not least, the ambiguity that we spoke about earlier, including the tone of the music there's a lot of inspiration there from Jóhann Jóhannsson, like how you can allow the audience's imagination to play detective and make the music part of the storytelling.
My brother went to the NASA library as well, so there are times in this movie when you are hearing what it sounds like to be in space. He processed the sounds of what it sounds like on Mars and they're in the movie.
B&S: Have you guys ever taken a road trip together?
Juan: I was probably like seven. Our parents had a 1994 Toyota and we drove from our hometown to the Colombian coast to a city called Santa Marta which is a fourteen-hour drive. It was very much Y tu mamá también. (laughs)
Sebastian: All our luggage was on the top with the surfboards. (laughs)
Juan: I want to say that my brother is a genius. He would go off in his little world and then he would email me sounds at night and I would be like like a little kid opening a gift and Christmas.
(To Sebastian) Every time you send me stuff and that was so special.
We poured our hearts into it and I hope it comes through.
Sebastian: My brother is the best brother in the world. It really is a blessing to have such a talented brother. He's a serious filmmaker and I get to work with him. I feel lucky.
Maybe I saw a different film...?
rklein1239 April 2024
After watching this, I was surprised by all the super positive reviews I found on IMDB. I suppose there is the aspect of "other," of "alien." But the film didn't blow me away the way it apparently did others.
I found one of the two main characters, Peter, to be so offensive and nasty that I couldn't wait for the film to end. Okay, I get that being an outsider and an oddball can make one bitter and resentful.
Sure, he longs to be like other people, and have satisfying relationships with other people. It was made clear that he sought a sexual experience - and he certainly chose well in Hamish Allan-Headly's character. But right from the start, and all through the movie his nasty tone and angry attitude wore very thin.
Maybe I was bugged by the logistics surrounding the car, too.
There's a character who travels with the pair for a short time, but how does she get back to her own car?? And would the pinkmobile ever have been returned had Peter not gone along for the ride? Those questions bothered/distracted me while watching.
Sarah Hay did an excellent job with her role. I don't know if Matthew Jeffers was an issue for me because of his acting, or more likely the script he was given to work with. I realize that the point was to create a frustrated and angry character, but I didn't need to be hit over the head repeatedly with that to get the point. He wasn't even vaguely sympathetic as a character in the film - at least not for me - at any point in the movie. Rather, I think his character served to drag the overall experience of the film down, making it just plain tedious.
If someone were to ask me if I recommended this movie, I'd tell them they could better invest their hour and 40 minutes better elsewhere.
I found one of the two main characters, Peter, to be so offensive and nasty that I couldn't wait for the film to end. Okay, I get that being an outsider and an oddball can make one bitter and resentful.
Sure, he longs to be like other people, and have satisfying relationships with other people. It was made clear that he sought a sexual experience - and he certainly chose well in Hamish Allan-Headly's character. But right from the start, and all through the movie his nasty tone and angry attitude wore very thin.
Maybe I was bugged by the logistics surrounding the car, too.
There's a character who travels with the pair for a short time, but how does she get back to her own car?? And would the pinkmobile ever have been returned had Peter not gone along for the ride? Those questions bothered/distracted me while watching.
Sarah Hay did an excellent job with her role. I don't know if Matthew Jeffers was an issue for me because of his acting, or more likely the script he was given to work with. I realize that the point was to create a frustrated and angry character, but I didn't need to be hit over the head repeatedly with that to get the point. He wasn't even vaguely sympathetic as a character in the film - at least not for me - at any point in the movie. Rather, I think his character served to drag the overall experience of the film down, making it just plain tedious.
If someone were to ask me if I recommended this movie, I'd tell them they could better invest their hour and 40 minutes better elsewhere.
"The Trip" with Steve Coogan... on acid. (my elevator pitch)
screenwriting-213 June 2023
I just love this movie. It's funny, touching, bold, exciting, it really has everything you could want. And it really feels original and creative, unlike anything else from hollywood these days.
One thing missing in the digital age is people who support each other and real life situations. We're all trapped inside, with or without a pandemic keeping us inside, our social media world traps us and disconnects us. Movies like that this remind me of the unquantifiable importance of human connection.
So far this is my favorite move this year!
After watching this I went and watched Peanutbutter Falcon, which also scratches a similar itch and I highly recommend too.
One thing missing in the digital age is people who support each other and real life situations. We're all trapped inside, with or without a pandemic keeping us inside, our social media world traps us and disconnects us. Movies like that this remind me of the unquantifiable importance of human connection.
So far this is my favorite move this year!
After watching this I went and watched Peanutbutter Falcon, which also scratches a similar itch and I highly recommend too.
Engaging road trip movie
lynnwmeng9 June 2023
I loved Unidentified Objects. This is an indie gem that unfolds with compassionate development of the characters, who become more and more appealing as the movie progresses. An original version of a road trip movie with unusual twists. The film portrays many touching scenes and some deep sadness interspersed with moments of quirky yet gentle humor. The main actors, Matthew Jeffers and Sarah Hay, are excellent in their roles and seem perfectly cast. Great work by supporting actors as well. With an impressive script and and restrained, brilliant directing, Unidentified Objects casts quite a spell and is ultimately uplifting.
Unidentified Objects: A Must-See Film that Defies Expectations
m_ceci4 June 2023
I had the pleasure of attending the premiere of 'Unidentified Objects' at Cinema Village in NYC, where I was blown away by the passion and creativity of the filmmakers. The Q&A at the end was a true highlight, as it showcased how this talented team had to use their problem-solving skills to the maximum potential in order to make this film what it is today.
It's clear that the dedication and hard work put into the production have paid off, as 'Unidentified Objects' is a film that truly stands out from the crowd. With exceptional acting, breathtaking sound design, and thought-provoking themes, this movie is guaranteed to leave a lasting impression on anyone who watches it.
Unidentified Objects is a film that defies expectations and explores complex themes of identity, connection, and acceptance in a unique and engaging way. Director Juan Felipe Zuleta, writer Leland Frankel, and the whole team of makers behind this film have crafted a story that features two flawed and relatable characters, portrayed by outstanding actors Matthew Jeffers and Sarah Hay.
Overall, "Unidentified Objects" is a great movie that will leave a lasting impression. It's clear that the filmmakers have created something very special, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a thought-provoking and entertaining cinematic experience.
It's clear that the dedication and hard work put into the production have paid off, as 'Unidentified Objects' is a film that truly stands out from the crowd. With exceptional acting, breathtaking sound design, and thought-provoking themes, this movie is guaranteed to leave a lasting impression on anyone who watches it.
Unidentified Objects is a film that defies expectations and explores complex themes of identity, connection, and acceptance in a unique and engaging way. Director Juan Felipe Zuleta, writer Leland Frankel, and the whole team of makers behind this film have crafted a story that features two flawed and relatable characters, portrayed by outstanding actors Matthew Jeffers and Sarah Hay.
Overall, "Unidentified Objects" is a great movie that will leave a lasting impression. It's clear that the filmmakers have created something very special, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a thought-provoking and entertaining cinematic experience.
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