Review of Bokeh (2017) by David W — 08 Jul 2017

I feel kind of bad hammering this movie. For a low budget film it is beautifully shot, if perhaps not on the level something like Upstream Color. I mention that because tonally it has a sort of Shane Carruth vibe about it. A small intimate film that asks interesting and expansive questions. Sadly it just never lives up to the interesting and expansive part.

The protaganists in the film wake up to find that everyone else on the planet has apparently dissapeared. A few other films have tried this concept on with similar disappointing results. The reason for that is that they all make the same basic narrative error. The surviors typically spend only a few minutes of screen time trying to figure it out what happened, and a similar amount trying to locate other survivors. In the end that just doesn't feel right. Who would give up so easily under the circumstances. Other than gathering food and water it seems rationale that people would spend a large part of a post apocalypse looking for other survivors.

Even taking that out of the equation this film fails to deliver the intense emotional experience it is clearly going for. Ultimately the couple that survives is kind of boring. It captures some moments that ring true, like when one of them opts to take an elevator and it stalls during a electrical brownout. In normal life that is a scary but non life threating event. To be seperated from the only other person alive and have it happen is terrifying.

Unfortunately there are just not enough of those moments. Thats too bad, because you can see the craft that went into making it. I wish the filmmakers well, I think there future is bright. Until then I am hoping someone like Shane Carruth, or Dennis Villanueva takes on a concept like this, and does it right.