Tuesday 26 June 2012

Sun Don't Shine - EIFF 2012

Amy Seimetz.

Aymee Sighmetzzz.

It's a good name right?

It sounds...filmy.

It sounds like the kind of name a person would have if they were making a certain type of film.

When I hear the name Amy Seimetz here is what I imagine her film would be like;

Cool...but not "hipster" cool, do you know what I mean?  Not cool like "Hey, have you seen my ironic facial hair".  No, the right kind of cool...stylish and, maybe, stylised.  It would be a film that would look cool and that would have a very distinctive style.

Smart...but not Stephen Hawking smart.  Not so smart that an ordinary person could never penetrate it.  No, this film would be the right sort of smart...carefully constructed, intelligent, witty and tidy...the kind of smart you are when you go to church at Christmas with your parents to keep them happy...best shoes, best shirt, everything ironed.  Smart.

Dark...I think it's the "Seimetz" thing.  "Seimetz" just sounds like the kind of name that has dark edges, no?  Dark is overused nowadays...Spiderman can be "dark", apparently, but I'm talking about the right kind of dark...unsettling, confusing, awkward and uncomfortable but all carried out with that style and not-hipster cool I was just talking about.

"Sun Don't Shine" is exactly that film.

It's cool, it's smart and it's dark.

It's the exact movie that a person called Amy Seimetz should be making.

It's a road movie but it's not.

It's a neo-noir.

It's mumblecore if you are lazy...the truth is that it is more accomplished and meaningful than anything from that "genre" could ever hope to be.

It's arthouse but with Hollywood style.

It's a film that asks questions and then refuses to give you pat answers...Seimetz doesn't want to be your teacher, she wants to help you think for yourself and yet she never becomes "preachy" like a Michael Hanneke.

"Sun Don't Shine" is a film that I could have watched with no sound...it's so beautiful.  Every frame is drenched in the heat and light of it's Florida setting.  You can feel the heat.  You can taste the sweat forming on leading man Kentucker Audleys top lip as he drives Kate Lyn Shell to their inevitable destiny.

"Sun Don't Shine" is a movie about love, all consuming love, the kind of love that makes you do crazy, stupid things and then pushed you towards even crazier, increasingly stupid things to make amends.  Oh, we've all been there...we've all said things, bought things, done things for people we loved so much that it hurt and then we've all gone further still.

If you haven't then you've never been in love.

Seimetz knows what love can do to people.

Mermaids and swimming pools.

Water and sunshine.

Sex and death.

Love and lust.

The heat...

Murder and passion.

Examples of films this cool, this smart and this dark are a cause for celebration...we should celebrate Amy Seimetz.

1 comment:

  1. oh gosh, thanks for writing this. you've said the unsayable. amy seimetz's film is so subtle and sublime that it is hard to put into words, but you did it. you did it.

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