Thursday, February 28, 2008

Redacted: of Facets and Perspectives


"I am always fascinated by how you maximize the visual potential of your location or your material" Brian De Palma says in the interview extra on the Redacted DVD. It is this approach that makes Redacted somewhat interesting, despite issues with sterotyped characters, over broad acting and messy execution. De Palma use of different media perspectives is fascinating and somewhat ground-breaking.

"All of these ideas came from the Internet." says De Palma in the Interview. He is also talks about creating a digital reality with HD. It is a reality that he builds from a variety of materials and perspectives. There is the video diary of Pvt. Angel Salazar, the ambitious film student, Surveillence and testimony video, Internet web cams, YouTube-like web presences, Arab insurgency websites, knock offs of CNN and Al Jazeera, and an embedded French documentary crew.

The experiment with form is intriguing, but the execution overall is not. A squad in Samara copes with the heat, ambiguity, horror, and drudgery of this war. We have two lunk head hillbillies, a college literary guy, the family guy with the unlikely name of Lawyer, an early casuality of a black sergeant, and, of course, Salazar, the wanna be filmstudent who tries to keep the horror at camera's length but admits that "just because your watching doesn't mean you're not a part of it."

I have not seen De Palma's Casualities of War of which Redacted is stated to be recast from its original Vietnam setting and story line. The roadblock sequence is interesting and seems true to the kind of tension and uncertainty that the soldiers face. The central plot action revolves around a pre-meditated rape on a 15 year old Iraqi girl that the two southern crackers instigate. It is designed to kick the viewer in the gut, but the characters and execution make it muddy and bog it down. This is a classic situation where form outshines content. Mike Figgis and Stephen Soderburgh's piror experimentations with long takes and HD (Hotel, Time Code, Full Frontal) didn't truly succeed either. Even if the film had troubles deep and wil likely polarize the population that will see it, one should note and admire the attempt by a master filmmaker still working at trying to do something unique.
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:14 AM
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