Dear Gela,
I know we agreed on US10,000 for me to act as a consultant on your remake of 13 Tzameti for Morabito Picture Co., but I have just watched the film, and I offer my critique for free. I’m glad you said that you plan to “change a lot of the story line.” I hope you go further than that and change even more. Don’t let the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize from the 2006 Sundance festival mislead you into thinking that substantial changes won’t improve the movie.
Your purpose is suspense, but the problem in the first section of the film is that we don’t care about the 22-year old roofer who is the protagonist about to go into a life and death situation. He should be an extroverted, lively guy we’d all like to have a beer with. At the same time, he should have a darker side—the frustration of the immigrant working below his family expectations. I’d like to see him toiling in backbreaking labour, and laughing over a pint in the local pub with his brother or best friend. I’d like to see a family discussion about how they’ve come down in the world, how they are depending on him to make ends meet, and how he takes this responsibility with a touch of irritation amidst his good humour.
As soon as we realize what the young guy has gotten himself into, we are shocked, and, unfortunately, that is the high point of the movie. Then the suspense changes to whether he will survive the game of chance. The suspense, however, is minimal because the game of chance does not make sense. It is strictly mathematical, and if you are reasonably good at mental arithmetic, you can calculate the odds as you watch the movie. This is not why men bet millions of dollars, and this is not why viewers sit on the edge of their seats. There must be something of a contest involved. In this bizarre game of chance, practice does not matter, talent does not matter, coaching and strategy are irrelevant—nothing matters except the mathematical probability, and, I must add, what you the writer/director decide the outcome will be. To create suspense, I suggest you read an old short story, “The Most Dangerous Game.” The aristocratic hunter, tired of such dangerous game as the Cape rhino, hunts a human, who, unlike the other humans hunted, proves to be more than a match. In case I have not made my point clear, I’ll state it another way: The high point of the movie is when we realize the game of chance is a game of life and death, but it does not matter that the pawns are people. They could be widgets or chips. There could be balloons popping instead of heads. The human elements of character, cunning, philosophy, and courage must enter into the equation. Then we will understand why men risk millions and going to jail as murderers; then the audience will be on the edge of their seats.
Of course you will get new actors for every role, as well you should. But I’d encourage you to keep the ring master, as he was by far the best actor in the movie, shouting out commands with enthusiastic authority and getting slightly more desperate with every round of the slaughter.
You’ll probably also change all of the music—a good thing because it is obvious and grating. I’d encourage you to take direction from the one bit of music that really worked, that pierced and stuck. When the fat contestant is playing on the out-of-tune piano . . . such diagetic music sneaked up and grabbed me. You have many other opportunities to use in situ music. Early on we could hear ethnic music in the workers’ home, and we could hear appropriately dissolute music in the decaying house the protagonist is re-roofing. We could hear increasingly distressing music on the car radios and in the train stations as our man gets further and further into trouble. And you could have train musak playing ironically over the final scene.
Lastly, you have to decide if you are going to say anything in the film beyond “this is shocking and suspenseful.” As you well know, Village Voice tried to do that for you by proclaiming your film “a brutal metaphor for the global economy.” Thankfully, you never made such ludicrous claims. But at the same time, you should think whether you want to go in that direction. By having multi-national businessmen (instead of only French) who are very rich (instead of a bunch of rag-a-muffins) meet in a palatial setting (instead of a decrepit building), you’d steer viewers toward such an interpretation. That said, you have to have something original to say. Everyone knows that a few thousand rich people run everything and don’t give a damn about us. Have you got anything to add to that?
I hope that the remake gets your creative juices flowing and that you’re proud of the improvement. Looking forward to doing business in the future,
JIMBELL
posted on Tuesday, September 04, 2007 3:40 AM by JimBell