May 17, 2012

The Theatre Bizarre


Was an interesting, fruitful (yet at the same time, mildly disappointing) experience.

The six short films, presented as an anthology and touring the Film Festival (Toronto International, to name one) circuit for the past year - much to my chagrin - finally felt the cold, judgemental embrace my eyes provide to anything that isn't made by Oren Peli or stars Jack Nicholson. The films are very difficult to describe in entirety, since they were largely separate in subject matter and ran the gamut from terrible to excellent. The nice thing about the chronology was that they were evenly spaced; one segment, if it was a particularly emotional or deep trip, would be followed by a more humourous or shocking piece. It kept the entire film light, making sure you weren't stuck in one place emotionally for too long.
I don't like spoiling movies for those who read reviews by explaining or describing them in any great, lengthy detail. I will, however, say that if you're halfway through the set and find your interest waning, hang in there, because they saved the best one of the six for last.

The setting is inconsequential, and therefore I have no problem typing it here; a woman, obsessed with an abandoned theatre across the street from her hovel of an apartment, is shocked to see the doors open and, stupidly, decides to walk in. She's then presented six stories (supposedly true, at least in that world) about six different people in six situations. Sixuations.

Some levity, since this article has been so serious up until this point.

Once again, without giving too much away, I was pleased to learn that the stories were so wide in variety. Many deal with every day issues; mortality, relationships, life after death, etc.. but they do so in very fresh and unique ways. A few of them are even twisted and disturbing, pleasantly enough to keep me around through the whole sequence (since that was what I initially had thought I signed up for).
One in particular was especially well-done to me, because the reality it was set in was very concrete. I really hate it when a main character is thrust into a world that they're unfamiliar with, full of customs and normalcies that they haven't encountered and subsequently reject. Many of these stories operated on the principle that everyone involved was accustomed to the way things were. Nobody was shocked, like, "Oh my god, you keep children as pets until they're old enough to have their own? That's awful! Everyone's awful (This is an example, and it has nothing to do with any of the films)!" Then they're exiled or tortured or something because they can't get with the program. I don't enjoy watching that. Instead, each person involved in each story was fully aware of how that world worked and was fine with it. It was a welcome change.

Of the few issues that did arise for me, the largest would have to be the pacing of the films as individuals. It was kind of awful. Firstly, there's a difference between building atmosphere and dragging out a conversation to fill a time deadline, figure it out. Sometimes I got the idea that the directors didn't sit down to judge the length of time passing between lines or actions. A couple of the films were downright boring, right up until their climax. This is a problem. If I'm at the circus, it's cool that the bear's riding a unicycle. After watching that for twenty five minutes with the only difference being whether or not he rides clockwise or counter, I begin wondering what I'm going to have for dinner tonight. Then, by the time the handstand tightrope walker comes out, I don't really care, and he has to do an extra backflip to get me interested again. I found myself wondering whether or not it would be beneficial to skip through the first scenes of some of these pieces.

That's not to say the delivery at the end of the films wasn't sharp. In fact, two or three in particular became easy favourites for me because of their endings alone. It was odd, seeing a movie and thinking "I'll never watch this again", right up until the last bit, and feeling your thoughts change to "I'll watch this entire movie three times just for that four minute part." If that's what you were going for, director sir, kudos.

In conclusion, as I said after watching The Theatre Bizarre, the movie was a decent expenditure of my time. I'm glad I watched it. I'm especially glad I hunkered down through what I didn't enjoy. Honourable mention goes to the human-puppets who introduced each film; they are successfully the creepiest dolls I've ever seen in my life.


I no longer rate movies on a 1-to-10 scale, because I find it to be very confining. Read the review and take from it what you like.

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