up is familiar: two beautiful girls take a creative driving shortcut through scary rural territory. Of course, they break down, and get attacked by…things. But just when they think they have a handle on the situation as some sot of zombie attack, a bloody faced man yells “They’re not zombies!” Heads appear to explode. And the film’s point of view completely changes.
experiences of the dad. The writing and dialogue uniquely embody each character created, and the performances could not have been more authentically executed. The pace might be a little sauntering for some moviegoers who have become more accustomed to the traditional Hollywood fast-paced, action-driven tempo. But for those willing to dive into the spirit of indie character-driven art film dramas, you won’t be disappointed.
Stanley’s script remains agnostic over treatment efficacy. At its most optimistic, it suggest that having someone else to live for is the key to surviving the rest. At the other end, it implicitly criticizes the zero-tolerance mindset which says that even a sip of booze is such a failure that, well, shit, a person might as well fail in a blaze of glory and do heroin at the same time.
In the film festival program blurb, one of the film’s topics is described as “the never-ending process of healing.” That’s true of trauma, addiction, what-have-you…but it’s a phrase that can also apply to life. We can – and must – always heal, always figure out what ails us and rebound better. Even the most educated of intellectuals sometimes utter a disfluency, as even the best of us encounter their metaphorical equivalent in life.
Like so much else that simplistic forces in society try to force into a binary, autism is a spectrum. And while we may have heard the phrase “on the spectrum,” internalizing what it means is another thing. Donvan and Zucker take pains to show both ends, emphasizing that while it’s unfair and prejudicial to assume high-functioning autistic people can’t function just fine, it’s equally misguided to neglect just how much help those on the other end need, in some cases to keep from physically damaging themselves regularly.
But See for Me is no simple “good women versus bad men” escapist shoot ’em up. Sophie is a pragmatist above all else, and will switch sides however many times it takes in order to stay alive. Okita, along with writers Adam Yorke and Tommy Gushue, not only look to shatter stereotypes about the disabled as they relate to their abilities, but also their perceived nobility. They’re not afraid to have their heroes be seriously flawed, in ways that major studio executives would probably insist on sanding off.
As an animator, Vinton could certainly compete with Disney or anyone else. His elaborate clay-sculpted characters rival any seen before or since for detail, and the way he would transform them, melt them, and turn them into other things onscreen evinces a kind of imagination rarely seen in most studio animation…and the influence of psychedelics in his youth, to which he freely confesses.
Now imagine that instead of having those conversations inside a dorm room, you find yourself inside a world made entirely of such questions. That’s what this movie calls The Show, initially presented as an experimental theater piece but soon proving to be far more encompassing than that, like some adult conceptual version of The Phantom Tollboth crossed with extreme haunts like McKamey Manor or Blackout.
If this were a typical American movie, one of two paths would likely be followed next. Let’s call them Hostel and Eurotrip. Under the first scenario, the danger gradually escalates until it becomes impossible to escape. Under the second, absurd situations escalate until things get ridiculous, and the guys probably get laid.
It might be enough to simply stop and rebuild the old lives of these three’s families, but the filmmaker goes above and beyond to recreate as much of this town in its original form as possible. With a dearth of archival material and an emphasis on bringing them to life we HEAR the trains engines firing up and the cries of Jews being sent to death camps. The middle section of the film really draws out the history of the Nazi takeover of this neighborhood.
