Friday, June 9, 2017

In Brief:Thirteen (2017) Dances With Films 2017

Female operative being held by Isis is left in the care of a young boy. A heat argument ensues that is complicated by the battle coming to the camp where she is being held.

A nice idea that doesn't quite work, THIRTEEN has a couple of different problems from being too short, to not really feeling real (Isis I don't think would hold the woman down to do the waterboarding), to having a kid who doesn't look 13 be the one holding the captive,  to having a script which is much to arch to really work. The problem is that because the film is short the film has to get over certain pieces of information in a short period of time. People don't speak naturally they pontificate to get their point across.  We are not watching a moment in time but a stage arguement. It never rings true so I tuned out.

Watching the film I was struck by two things  first that the film might have worked better had it been longer. The need for polemic speaking would be reduced with more time. The other thought was this might have worked better on stage as a one act play where the heightened sense of reality would play better than on the screen where things have to be more real.

An interesting misfire.

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