Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they're seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I'm operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers?
City State Trailer
This trailer ought to be the standard by which others in its field should be judged against.
One of the things that become like white noise to me are the posturing, loud-mouth kind of films where the name of the crime genre game is, "How big can you make your explosions?" With trailers for movies like Takers, just pulling a random movie from the big steaming pile of faux crime film, you are promised a light-weight romp with people you can't really take seriously if for no other reason than their delicate facial features. It's a promise that I, for one, don't feel like accepting anymore.
I want my crime to be messy, to be complicated, and to be something like Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher trilogy. I get the feeling that's what we get here and I couldn't be more thrilled.
Straight out of Iceland, director Olaf De Fleur looks like he's pieced together a film that mixes in a little bit of vengeance, a whole lot of drama, and killing. The three elements coalesce nicely but it's the opening sequence that just floors me as a viewer. The trailer is one long narrative sequence where a father speaks to his unborn (possibly murdered?) child who our protagonist never got to see with this own eyes as we see images of dad all battered and bruised, holding a sonogram of the child that I believe never was.
The music is utterly devastating as we flashback to different times, different people. It's a disjointed phalanx of moments but that's OK. You see some men who look like they are primed to kill in their three piece suits, some thug in a hoodie who is about to throw down with a pistol in his hand, a dead body gets dumped over a boat, a dead woman gets rolled on her side, a SWAT team dramatically rolls up to a scene in the middle of a pouring rain, and before you know it the trailer is finished.
The narrative is strong, no question, as there are a litany of unanswered questions about what in the hell is going on here but I found myself being excited and brought to a boil when watching the trailer and this is exactly how someone should be left feeling if your movie is worth anticipating. It's crime filled but it seems perfectly poised to translate with those of us who realize our sensibilities are closer aligned with other countries than many people realize. [Twitch]
The Kids Grow Up Trailer
Documentary Doug Block is on to something here.
I can, without question, and with absolute certainty, say that if you haven't knowingly produced a human being this trailer won't be as compelling. There is something indelible that happens when you bring a life into this world and there is no question that a very real thing washes over those who are open to the experience. What follows, and what I imagine is its eventuality, is distilled, heartbreakingly, in this trailer.
While I can't say I really dig the musical choice, it's so very ominous, it's the grainy home movie footage that snaps you like a rubber band. We get this girl being interviewed, all of sixteen, lamenting what it was like to be young. A pull-quote from Michel Gondry pops on the screen. It's an excellent beginning.
We vacillate between versions of young daughter and older daughter as we get personal perspectives on life from both of these life stages all the while getting interstitials that let us know what this movie is about: a girl coming of age but of a father coming to terms with his own age as well. It's this dichotomy that penetrates my emotional core as I get it. I understand what this man is trying to say, to capture.
What is captured well, also, is the tension between this man who obviously wanted to get the life of his girl coming into her own, and being an adult of her own, with the logical result of what happens if you are constantly sticking a camera in someone'
Posts
