Wild Sound

How could anyone in our generation not go to see a movie called LOL? If you can, try to see it at IFFBoston Sunday, the last screening of the film. So far it’s the best I’ve seen. It’s an entirely improvised film about relationships–between people, and between people and social technologies–that was made for $3000. That means lots of IM, email, cell phones, etc. The film has little plot other than following the development or degeneration of a few friends and their relationships, and how technology is an integral part of that, both bringing them together and keeping them apart. You might say that the organizing device in the film is a musical project one of the characters is putting together–making short videos of people making random noises with their mouths, which he then edits together to make music out of just their sounds. Watching the film I felt it had a very Andrew Bujalski feel, and then *poof* one of these video heads making noises is Bujalski. Turns out the filmmakers, who live in Chicago, sent out a bunch of emails to people asking for videos of themselves making noises, and Bujalksi sent one in. So did several other indie filmmakers. It’s like a who’s who of indie festival darlings. At the screenings they are giving out free copies of the soundtrack as well, which was actually made by the actor in the film, who is in fact the musician he is playing in the film. So as you can see, like Bujalski, the filmmakers keep their characters close to the actors’ actual performances, which makes for excellent performances, because there’s not much performance going on at all.

Today I’m off to see In Between Days and Guatemalan Handshake, more soon…

Filed by cynthia rockwell at 12:18 pm under IFFBoston,Just Movies
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