Fans of MFM know that, in addition to being editor in chief, I used to do a lot of critiques personally. However, lately, I've stepped down a lot of my duties as a contributing writer, due to some of my increased duties as editor, as well as overseeing the low-budget franchise MFM is spearheading, World of Depleted. As such, I don't get to personally critique films as much as I would like these days. However, sometimes a film will just jump out at me when it's submitted and I have no choice but to critique it personally.
High School Brawl was such a movie.
The premise of this film is insanely simple: Young man (Graham Hirano) walks into prep school, climbs flight of steps, and, in stairwell, gets jumped by a number of uniformed hoodlums. (Sounds not unlike my gang-riddled High School in Washington State—although no one actually wore uniforms there!) However, his assailants get more than they bargained for when it turns out that the man they jumped is extremely skilled at defending himself. Who is this man?
Whenever I see a film labeled as "Experimental," I become very nervous. While every film that challenges it filmmaker to try something new is "experimental," this term is bandied around a lot by filmmakers who are making self-aggrandizing art pieces. (The term we use for these sorts of films at MFM is "masturbatory filmmaking," because they're for the pleasure of the filmmaker and no one else watching it gets much out of it. Enough said.)
To my great pleasure, despite the experimental nature of this film, it's extremely watchable and enjoyable to anyone—not just the filmmakers. The experimental part of this came from the fact that the filmmakers wanted to see if they could make an entire fight sequence consisting of a single take. Unlike movies like "Snake Eyes" (which use a massive "single" take shot—although I know enough tricks to know they cheated this shot a number of times), they had no steadycam, but simply a shoulder mount that the director (who served as DP) had to learn how to finesse for interesting shots while not making the audience feel like they had just endured another Paul Greengrass debacle! (Of course, you just know that Greengrass is trying to get a film where Jason Bourne infiltrates High School greenlit! After seeing this, he might change the working title to, "Bourne to Brawl.")
In the end, they successfully created a short with a simple premise that executed that premise well enough to pull you in and keep you there. Additionally, the filmmakers realized that they couldn't just use the fight as the only part of the film if they wanted it to actually be a film, so they conclude the film with a separate scene that serves as a reveal of the main character. Like the rest of the film, this somewhat simple ending turns out to be clever and leaves the audience with a smile on their faces.
Despite the fact that there was a continuously uncut camera shot for 95% of this film, the visual look actually was quite intriguing, rather than bland and boring. Even when the camera would follow someone other than the main character, there was a logic to it and an interest to the eye in the choices made. According to the filmmaker notes, they spent two days running the choreography and then two days filmming it. Why so many times filmming it? Because they would have to reshoot if a single person in the massive fight had a misstep. All in all, the director explained that they had shot the entire scene over 20 times to get it right.
In the end, while it may not have been as perfect as it might've been if everyone involved were trained stunt men, it was amazingly watchable and intriguing. I really have to tip my hands to these folks! (And will undoubtedly contact them to see if they want to put their love of mayhem to use by creating a short in the Depleted universe! Good shoulder mounted skills and a good grasp of framing on the fly are invaluable for people shooting post-apocalyptic tales!)
The uniforms that they selected and put together for all the "thugs" were convincing and the fake blood that the different actors had to apply seamlessly when they were out of sight of the camera worked quite well. (It wasn't quite as realistic as the chocolate syrup and red food coloring trick, but it looked pretty good, nonetheless.)
The audio in this was very cool and the sound effects really helped sell the fight. (Apparently, the sound design was done for free by a friend who was impressed with the finished visuals of the fight.)
Additionally, the creative team decided to look at the fight as more of dance and used Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata as the background score! Really a beautiful choice. (It's quite amazing how often a soft song or score adds extra impact to action scenes! The "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" scene in Face/Off still gives me chills! Recently, I was reminded of that again, as we've been working on the scoring to Depleted: Day 419 and had decided to drop the song, "Mad World," from Donnie Darko into our gunfight as a temp track. We were amazed by how it made the entire fight so much more cerebral! Obviously, we don't have the rights to that, but it made us think about connecting our more ominous score prior to the fight with something like a waltz during the fight!)
Obviously, $100 is a tiny budget. It went almost entirely to clothes for the crew and sanitary wipes to clean off blood in between takes! (Apparently, everybody brought their own food!)
Will I rewatch this film? Absolutely. Will I show it to people I like? Absolutely. (Will I show it to people I like because I like them, and not to play a prank on them? Yes, that too!)
At the end of the day, Kurmey and team succeeded in creating a fascinating exploration of movement and technique that is entertaining to watch.
What can I say? I was impressed with this exploratory piece. They made an experiment that was entertaining to watch and still told an actual story. (A small one, but it's definitely there.) With it's lack of dialogue and emphasis on music, it almost took me nostalgically back to the golden age of silent film!
I look forward to seeing what Kurmey and company come up with in the future.
