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SpoutBlogI finally got to see
LOL last night (
playing all week at the Pioneer Theater in New York). My personal fondness leans more toward Joe Swanberg's first film,
Kissing on the Mouth, but they're two totally different films. However, both continue to explore what I consider to be the most exciting territory in filmmaking today.
Kissing on the Mouth is like watching young twenty somethings play a chess game between physical intimacy and emotional intimacy.
LOL is more like riffs on how intimacy interfaces with technology. Three different boy/girl couplings are explored. The males spend more and more time connecting through techie devices like cell phones and IM, while the women grow disenchanted with them. The ending of the film plays like a final flourish of a jazz improvisation. It's not a climax, but the players are done and ready to move on.
Although it may feel haphazard at times, the film never presents itself as being anything more than meditations on a theme. It takes place in a foggy spot between essay, documentary, and drama. It's no coincidence today's young and courageous filmmakers are playing in this territory.
The digital revolution of affordable cameras, editing systems and other filmmaking equipment is shaping up to be a revolution of process. Affordable equipment is taking filmmakers into the more intimate spaces of their lives. If reality TV is about manipulating spaces and relationships for television ratings, then films like
LOL and
51 Birch Street are about showing our spaces and relationships as they are: unglamorous, mundane, a lot of blank walls and futons, and—above all—totally captivating. These films certainly haven't tipped the attention of mainstream audiences, but I think they're the most exciting thing cameras are rolling on today.