Review of Black Pond (2011) by David L — 10 Dec 2012

Quite a peculiar film, if you can even call it a film, as it's more of a fly on the wall documentary with the way it's portrayed. It basically follows the events that led up to a mans death and subsequent burial in the woods.

The trouble is, despite the man wanting this as his last request, the family who grant him his wish are now being accused of his murder thanks to the twisted press stories being released via a dodgy psychotherapist who is giving counselling sessions to one of the families friends.

Whether or not there is any element of fact in this story by way of it being based on real life events, I'm not too sure, but if not then it's certainly a very odd concept. It very much has a style similar to that of the Inbetweeners of Friday Night Dinner I.

E. a very dry but direct British humour. Unfortunately, in all too many scenes its jokes just fail to hit the mark and it becomes quite drab to watch. There are some occasional laughs but they arrive after a long and tenuous beginning, by which point one is already beginning to fall asleep.

It all feels very cheap, very homemade, and something which given a couple of days, could probably come up with myself. I certainly enjoy watching films with a different style, if only to learn the lesson of not to watch them again.