Look Both Ways
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DVD Review
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Review
It has been some time since I have written a review of any kind, at
least a year and probably even longer than that, so forgive me if this
is a little rusty I will do my best. Given the time since my last
review it was probably in hindsight not such a great idea to start with
a review of such a melancholy independent Australian film. But for my
sins, here I am reviewing Look Both Ways.
Look Both Ways is a very quiet, sombre and slow paced film about a
group of loosely interconnected people and the life changing events of
one weekend. The thing that loosely connects all of these people is
death, specifically the tragic death of a young man who’s hit by a
train while walking his dog.
The main story focuses on photographer Nick (William McGuiness) and
Meryl (Justine Clarke) who meet at the scene of the accident. Nick
discovers that he has testicular cancer that has also spread to his
lungs, but unexpectedly while facing such terrifying news he also
discovers love in Meryl, an artist who has also just lost her father.
Other characters in the story, include reporter Andy who is having
relationship issues with his pregnant girlfriend Anna. Phil who is
Nicks editor and whom starts to reflect on his own life when he hears
about Nicks cancer. There’s the wife of the man killed in the train
accident who obviously has her own mourning to deal with and finally
there is the driver of the train who is struggling to come to terms
with what has happened.
As you can tell, this is not a cheery film or a comedy in any sense of
the word, the film is extremely sombre all the way through and to some
extent this is its’ downfall. Although I enjoyed it overall it did
suffer from a few problems. My main gripe is the overuse of musical
montages. Every ten minutes or so there seems to be someone looking
thoughtfully off into the distance while some suitable moody music
track plays in the background. Also there are a lot of animations used
in the film particularly towards the beginning, the animations are
generally just a few second clips and they kind of show what’s going on
inside the mind of either Nick or Meryl at the time. They both tend to
see death everywhere, be it a train wreck, a care pile or sharks
attacking in the sea, these visions of death are portrayed through the
animations.
It’s hard to know just what I thought of this film, on the one hand I
thought the story was very strong but on the other hand, I just felt
some of the delivery was lacking. I do have to confess that the
conclusion of the train driver did have me filling up and the film did
end well but then comes the biggest crime of all. After a perfect
little ending, they decided to add some montage scene that showed
future events that just ruined the feel of the whole thing. It’s like
they decided right at the last minute to add some cheesy Hollywood
happy ending that sticks out like a sore thumb, totally unnecessary.
Video / Audio
As usual Tartan provide the options of both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS
5.1 soundtracks as well as a Dolby Stereo option. In terms of both
sound and video, there’s nothing to complain about here just as there
is nothing to write home about. The low budget of the original film
shows through but this is no problem. Occasionally some of the dialogue
was drowned out by the music or the background sounds but overall it
was ok. Not one for showing off your system, but no problems that will
distract from the viewing experience.
Extras
The only extra on the disk is a short animated feature from writer /
director Sarah Watts. The feature is very much in the style of the
animations in Look Both Ways and the story is of a woman who constantly
sees images of doom and disaster in every day events, from traffic
accidents to drowning in the sea. The animation is around six minutes
long.
Overall
I do feel bad about writing some of the above as this is the first non
Hollywood movie I’ve sat and watched for a while and in this respect it
really was a breath of fresh air. However I can’t ignore some of the
niggling issues that detracted from an otherwise strong and well
delivered story. It will be interesting to see what writer / director Sarah Watt delivers with her next movie whatever that shall be.
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