Mass Comm 1307
Star date: 10/19/2011
*All Martian involvement in this review of Lo has been redacted as per orders from MASS COMM Command*
Film Review for Lo
I recently watched the movie, Lo, Travis Betz’s horror/comedy that debuted in the 2009 Austin Film Festival. I had set out that evening looking for a live-action sci-fi . The result was finding a real gem! This was a tagging blunder that worked out for the best. Trying not to judge a movie by its cover, I took the plunge.
Here is a loose interpretation of a plot overview. To know too much going into this movie would be a travesty. The film begins with the nervous Justin (played by Ward Roberts) sitting in the dark in a candle-lit pentagram in his apartment. Using an old book(older than that...older still... there, that’s about right), he summons the powerful demon, Lo (Jeremiah Birkett), and gives him the task of tracking down the soul of his lost girlfriend, April(Sarah Lassez). Justin hopes to return to earth bringing the soul of his beloved April with him, and is willing to dive in to the depths of Hell to find her. Through the use of dialogue and dramatic lighting, this movie creates a minimalist view while still developing the characters.
The immediate challenges I noticed the director, Travis Bertz, creatively dealt with were low-budgets and scene limitations. The whole movie was reported to be shot for around $2,000. Despite that price tag, the costumes where amazing. Lo strayed from the "cartoon-y" feel of modern CGI. To me, modern CGI is a special effects shortcut in today’s film. This movie was actual people in labor-intensive make-up shooting a film in under two days. Considering the scope of it, I was impressed. The other limitation was having a main character that could not wander outside of a set circle. This idea occurred to Betz after watching Jan Svankmajer’s Faust. The result was a clever use of storytelling elements that allowed the dialogue to build around the space limitation and progress the storyline.
The cinematography kept me riveted. While, even poking fun at itself, the lights were used to maximize the little use of sets. The scenes that used assembled sets were flashbacks and used a theatrical design (often the joyous/sad faces of Tragedy and Comedy are adorning the backdrops with a wide range of facial expression). Some of the camera angles allowed for a comic view "backstage" or behind the front curtain. Often, the costume-designer and actors not in the scene will appear handing objects to in-scene characters, which I see as a satirical element poking fun at the "stage adaptation" form of the movie. Since the sole illumination in this movie supposedly comes from candlelight, the scene can look a little "flickery" at first. Subtle color corrections, lighting, and editing tricks allow for a feeling of great expanse on a film shot in a small space. In a few places the movie seemed slightly overacted ("Goddamn it, GOD DAMMIT, Goddamn it, ...blah blah..." for 45 seconds) and I would have preferred another 6 minutes of what I consider padding-for-time to have been removed from this already only 80 minute film (the CGI intro for an only two letter word was the most grueling fly-in sequence I have ever witnessed). Also I watched this film first on Netflix, which had horrible sound leveling (playing the .avi file later proved it was not the Audio Guy’s fault!) That made certain words hard to hear. This was especially the case in the musical number, which probably lost a few audience members, but still advanced the plot in a quick and humorous way.
Both my two thumbs go way up for this one. I highly recommend it. Good luck finding it though. Many major film sites don’t have a review for this film. The lack of reviews works in the film’s favor, making it a fresh and funny view at love as a whole which proves "watching your life is very different from remembering it".
Here is a loose interpretation of a plot overview. To know too much going into this movie would be a travesty. The film begins with the nervous Justin (played by Ward Roberts) sitting in the dark in a candle-lit pentagram in his apartment. Using an old book(older than that...older still... there, that’s about right), he summons the powerful demon, Lo (Jeremiah Birkett), and gives him the task of tracking down the soul of his lost girlfriend, April(Sarah Lassez). Justin hopes to return to earth bringing the soul of his beloved April with him, and is willing to dive in to the depths of Hell to find her. Through the use of dialogue and dramatic lighting, this movie creates a minimalist view while still developing the characters.
The immediate challenges I noticed the director, Travis Bertz, creatively dealt with were low-budgets and scene limitations. The whole movie was reported to be shot for around $2,000. Despite that price tag, the costumes where amazing. Lo strayed from the "cartoon-y" feel of modern CGI. To me, modern CGI is a special effects shortcut in today’s film. This movie was actual people in labor-intensive make-up shooting a film in under two days. Considering the scope of it, I was impressed. The other limitation was having a main character that could not wander outside of a set circle. This idea occurred to Betz after watching Jan Svankmajer’s Faust. The result was a clever use of storytelling elements that allowed the dialogue to build around the space limitation and progress the storyline.
The cinematography kept me riveted. While, even poking fun at itself, the lights were used to maximize the little use of sets. The scenes that used assembled sets were flashbacks and used a theatrical design (often the joyous/sad faces of Tragedy and Comedy are adorning the backdrops with a wide range of facial expression). Some of the camera angles allowed for a comic view "backstage" or behind the front curtain. Often, the costume-designer and actors not in the scene will appear handing objects to in-scene characters, which I see as a satirical element poking fun at the "stage adaptation" form of the movie. Since the sole illumination in this movie supposedly comes from candlelight, the scene can look a little "flickery" at first. Subtle color corrections, lighting, and editing tricks allow for a feeling of great expanse on a film shot in a small space. In a few places the movie seemed slightly overacted ("Goddamn it, GOD DAMMIT, Goddamn it, ...blah blah..." for 45 seconds) and I would have preferred another 6 minutes of what I consider padding-for-time to have been removed from this already only 80 minute film (the CGI intro for an only two letter word was the most grueling fly-in sequence I have ever witnessed). Also I watched this film first on Netflix, which had horrible sound leveling (playing the .avi file later proved it was not the Audio Guy’s fault!) That made certain words hard to hear. This was especially the case in the musical number, which probably lost a few audience members, but still advanced the plot in a quick and humorous way.
Both my two thumbs go way up for this one. I highly recommend it. Good luck finding it though. Many major film sites don’t have a review for this film. The lack of reviews works in the film’s favor, making it a fresh and funny view at love as a whole which proves "watching your life is very different from remembering it".
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