{"id":2144,"date":"2011-01-12T20:12:08","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T01:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2144"},"modified":"2011-01-12T20:12:08","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T01:12:08","slug":"dvd-i-can-see-you-2008-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2144","title":{"rendered":"DVD: I Can See You (2008)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>I<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Good \/ DVD Transfer: Very Good \/ DVD Extras: Very Good<\/p>\n

Label: KINO \/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released:\u00a0October 27, 2009<\/p>\n

Genre: Thriller \/ Experimental<\/p>\n

Synopsis: Four young ad men seeking inspiration for their new campaign during a camping trip begin to have rather odd focus issue and surreal episodes.<\/p>\n

Special Features:\u00a0Audio commentary with writer\/director Graham Reznick, actors Ben Dickinson, Duncan Skiles & Chris Ford, and assistant director Josh Hartsoe \/ Featurette “I Can See You, A Closer Look” (20:51) \/ 5 Deleted Scenes & Outtakes (4:54 + 1:42 + 1:31 + 1:04 + 1:34) \/ Still Gallery (37) \/ Trailer \/ Bonus anaglyph 3D short: “The Viewer” (15:35) with optional audio commentary by director Graham Reznick, cinematographer Gordon Arkenberg, and VFX artist Neal Jonas \/ 2 pairs of anaglyph 3D glasses<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Graham Reznick describes his feature directorial debut as an abstract horror film, which is fair assessment, since the editing style and loose imagery are sometimes disjointed, and the film\u2019s tone diverges from a drama about three young ad men venturing into the forest for inspiration on a new household cleaner campaign to a thriller, potential ghost story, and outright surrealism.<\/p>\n

Reznick\u2019s background includes illustration, sound design, music, and a keen interest in the abstract and the surreal, and I Can See You<\/strong> was conceived as a low budget opportunity to exploit those disciplines (with half of the score composed by Jeff Grace), but the project would\u2019ve worked better in a more condensed form, like a 30-45 mins. short, because several montages tend to give the film an uneven, drifting tempo.<\/p>\n

The dialogue banter between the three leading characters (played by the Reznick\u2019s colleagues, who themselves are commercial directors making their feature debuts as thespians) isn\u2019t interesting and borders on the banal; the dialogue is semi-improvised, with too much allowance on a natural style instead of staying with a more restrictive and dramatically progressive style.<\/p>\n

The performances also vary in quality, and of the three novices, Ben Dickinson as Richards is the most believable (perhaps because he\u2019s the most restrained character, and due to Dickinson having a passing resemblance to Apartment Zero<\/strong>\u2019s creepy Hart Bochner).<\/p>\n

Once a pair of characters disappear in the woods, the film shifts into thriller mode and heads towards a finale lacking any definitive statement: Is the forest haunted? Was Richards hallucinating? Was the entire trip a nightmare playing from an ill mind?<\/p>\n

Things become wholly Lynchian when the chief element from the old ad campaign – the pitchman (Larry Fessenden), seen in a recurring commercial – suddenly appears before Richards, giving him murky instructions and theories of perception before there\u2019s a campfire slaughter, culminating in the removal of a hunting knife that lay buried in a colleague\u2019s brain.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a great surreal shock, but it doesn\u2019t really work in spite of Reznick dropping aural clues and motifs throughout the film of mounting weirdness. There\u2019s also a motif of an overall sense of weakening focus: characters unable to refine the conceptual elements of their campaign, troubled professional and personal relationships, and Richards\u2019 poor vision without glasses.<\/p>\n

The knife Richards removes from a colleague\u2019s brain figuratively punches a hole through what\u2019s been the film\u2019s \u2018rational\u2019 reality, and takes Richards on a weird trip where all kinds of LSD-styled imagery strobes and pours across the screen. The deleted scenes gallery offers a few clues \u2013 namely a campfire tale of ghosts and the forest spiritually responsible for causing a high volume of suicides \u2013 and there\u2019s an alternate ending involving a mutated Richards breaking in on a rival ad pitch to the client, but the sense is that Reznick had a concept that was given the chance as a feature, but with no concrete script in place, rewrites and deletions meant an incomplete vision. It\u2019s all well and creepy, but it ultimately doesn\u2019t satisfy, except for the brilliantly trippy montage that evokes Richards\u2019 explosive mental disintegration.<\/p>\n

More satisfying, in terms of a unified story, is The Viewer<\/strong>, a short film included on Kino\u2019s DVD, and originally concocted by Reznick as a special addition to the premiere of his feature debut. Collaborating again with cinematographer Gordon Arkenberg, Reznick devised the film as a 3D project using a hand-made rig and two Panasonic HD cameras instead of a single-lens 3D camera.<\/p>\n

Story-wise, it\u2019s told from the POV of an interviewed murder suspect, with an interrogator going through increasingly invasive levels of brain scanning to extract the memories the subject\u2019s unwilling to share. Once past Level 5, the neurological damage becomes permanent, and the details of the victim and the killing become more precise, even though there\u2019s a blurring of identities, with the interrogator and murder victim rotating places in the memory flashes and final interrogation scenes.<\/p>\n

Technically, the 3D effects work, and the optional DVD commentary track provides a decent breakdown of the film\u2019s production, how the effects were devised, differences with a single-lens 3D camera, and some of the themes and visual metaphors similar to I Can See You<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I Can See You<\/strong> also includes an optional commentary with the director, 1st assistant director, and three male leads, but it\u2019s largely a waste of time. Maybe it\u2019s due to the beer being consumed and spilled or the absence of a moderator, but the track consists of five guys talking about everything except the interesting bits: the project\u2019s genesis, scripting, editing, scoring, audio montages, and finale. There\u2019s material on casting and the location being used for Ti West\u2019s Trigger Man<\/strong> (which Reznick also sound designed), but there\u2019s little of interest in the feature-length track.<\/p>\n

The I Can See You <\/strong>making-of featurette was filmed by executive producer \/ actor Larry Fessenden, and it\u2019s a standard (and overlong) montage of idle chatter vignettes. There\u2019s not much of interest: the opening has some rehearsal footage; most of the footage in the mid-section shows cast and crew filming in a forest; and the last third has bits from the Lynchian musical sequence that\u2019s part of the trippy finale.<\/p>\n

A trailer makes it obvious the film was a tough sell for the filmmakers, since at best it can be characterized as an \u2018abstract\u2019 thriller. Reznick\u2019s feature debut is definitely worth a peek, but it\u2019s got its share of pacing flaws and story issues \u2013 problems that also affected Ti West\u2019s Trigger Man<\/strong> as well.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2011 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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Related links:<\/em><\/p>\n

CD: \u00a0House of the Devil, The<\/a><\/strong> (2009) \/ I Can See You<\/a><\/strong> (2008)<\/p>\n

Interview: Composer Jeff Grace<\/a><\/p>\n

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Related external links (MAIN SITE):<\/em><\/p>\n

DVD \/ Film: \u00a0Trigger Man<\/a><\/strong><\/strong> (2007)<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Official Film Site<\/a> — \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Buy from:<\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon.com<\/strong> \u2013 I Can See You (2008) \/ The Viewer (2009 3D Short Film)<\/a><\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/strong> – I Can See You<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em><\/em><\/em>\/\u00a0I<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ I . Film: Good \/ DVD Transfer: Very Good \/ DVD Extras: Very Good Label: KINO \/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released:\u00a0October 27, 2009 Genre: Thriller \/ Experimental Synopsis: Four young ad men seeking inspiration for their new campaign during a camping trip begin to have rather odd […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[4212],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-yA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2144"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2179,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144\/revisions\/2179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}