Review of Personal Velocity (2002) by Katy W — 25 Mar 2008

Every so often a film comes along that seems unassuming, quiet. Yet somewhere it stirs something in the subconscious; in locked rooms deep inside the soul.

Chances are you've never heard of Personal Velocity. Based on her book of the same title, Rebecca Miller wrote and directed this teeny-tiny independent gem. Released in 2002, it is the kind of film that the South African market for this kind of film is just big enough to land a copy of the DVD in the arthouse section at Look & Listen.

Weighing in at only 80 minutes, Personal Velocity features three portraits of three very different women, all about to make life-changing decisions (please disregard the The Hours reference that jumps to mind).

Each numbered portrait focuses on the central character at a crossroads, how she has come be there, which way she chooses and why. Although it may seem like one story repeated twice, that's where the similarities end.

The film contemplates the choices that women face relationships that are violent or seemingly perfect or uncertain. Although each portrait portrays the choices made, it is the crossroads that linger in one's mind. Would you (for you and your children's sake) trade domestic violence for an existence where nothing else is secure? Would you value yourself as an individual more than your perfect relationship, so much so that you leave your perfect husband? When redemption is on your doorstep, at what risk would you put yourself to take it?

Instead of using a fractured narrative (as is the trend these days) that has become all the rage of late, Miller tells each story separately and stripped to the bone, keeping the portraits short and the endings abrupt. The film only tells what needs to be told and it doesn't end will all three women having reached the proverbial nirvana, tying everything together in one big knot. This is not a story told in three different ways. Instead, it is three different stories with a common overlapping theme.

Miller directed Personal Velocity completely devoid of sentiment, yet the film does seem to evolve in an emotional manner and although it's not heartbreaking, you do find yourself will that one little tear of the miniscule piece that you saw of yourself. More impressive is that Miller excludes introductions to each portrait to set the stage for a narrative where no repetition of any event is needed to let the audience know of the emotional state of each woman. Instead, she uses flashbacks within each portrait to connect the dots with which the portraits open.

The third person narration does, in this case, give one the feeling that you are watching a visual book, rather than a motion picture, which some people can find annoying. But it is used only in an explanatory way within the flashbacks and doesn't influence the way the audience experiences and interprets the current events in the film.

The three actresses might ring a bell to South African audiences, although you might not be able to place them. Kyra Sedgwick (star of the drama series The Closer), Parker Posey (the weird music executive in Josie and the Pussycats) and Fairuza Balk (of American History X and Almost Famous) all deliver performances that capture the essences of their characters in such a way the audience identifies with their inner conflicts, rather than only to sympathise with characters on a screen.