Review of Frequencies (2013) by Akash S — 26 Aug 2015

Writer-Director Darren Paul Fischer's film 'Frequencies' is quite ambitious in nature, not by its budget, but by the number of intriguing themes it explores and the way it makes us contemplate on them. The experimental film combines science fiction and romance to deal with profound philosophical questions.

The movie is set in a world where people are born with predetermined frequencies, which signifies one's luck and the rate of success in life. Nature favours high-frequencied people, and when a high born meets a low born, some reaction or disturbance occurs to stop this. So, many people try to understand the workings of nature and try finding ways which can alter the effect of such laws. This kind of concept doesn't need a big budget, special effects and such, to explore. A riveting story with proper elements can easily do the trick, and that's what Fischer does here.

Identity, luck, success, destiny, choice and accidental discovery are just the superficial themes of the film. The underlying themes and questions make the film much more fascinating. Like, for instance, one of the main ideas it touches is partial knowledge/information. In the film's story, characters determine solutions to their problems and workings of nature with the help of knowledge (partial or specific) they have regarding the subject, and with each new discovery of information, the understanding, and thus the solution keeps changing. In the same way, in the three segments of the film, we ourselves see how the revelation of new information makes us see the same scene in a different light. In that regard, the film and its philosophy combine to give us an elegant and artistic puzzle.

The casting is good, especially the cute younger versions of the characters. Sometimes, the dialogues seem a bit too expository and there are moments which remind us of the film's low budget, but the underlying philosophical questions keep us engaged enough not to be bothered by such trivial shortcomings. The brilliant cinematography and effective editing also play an important part to make the film tight and gripping. Like, even the varying colour tones of the scenes (red being low frequency, and purple being high) have meaning, and look beautiful in the storytelling process.

There is no question regarding the movie's intellect and scope, but a little more heart and soul would have made it perfect. A little more character depth would have helped as well. But that being said, its themes have been handled well, and for a runtime of 105 minutes, it maintains the right pace and dares to shower us with a bunch of thought-provoking ideas.