The Water

Busy as I am searching for short films online, I  really don’t have time to obsess about music and search around for all the best new stuff. I, like many other people, have instead made Pitchfork my music bible. I check it briefly most every day and if they haven’t covered it, it’s likely I haven’t heard it.

So imagine my pleasure when Pitchfork, which has given me so much great music, gives me a short film to review as well! Gee, thanks Pitchfork!

We don’t usually post on the weekend, but this film, The Water, is a limited engagement thing on pitchfork.tv, so it behooved us to let you know asap. It’s directed by Kevin Drew who is the ringleader of the Canadian music collective Broken Social Scene (creators of one of the definitive rock records of decade imho),  features movie star Cillian Murphy (you’ll recognize him from the Batman franschise) and stars the beautiful face and voice of Feist (probably best known for her Count von Counte-esque ipod commercial).

Is it good? I won’t lie, I found it underwhelming. Mr. Drew severely overestimates the attention-span of modern film-watchers, leading to a bloated 15 min film with very little action. I am a big fan of mood and sparseness, but 5 minutes should have been taken out, considering that the extended long takes we are subjected to are not all that particularly interesting to start with. Certain directing and editing choices, the use of black ellipses in the middle of the film for example, are awkward and represent sloppy filmmaking.

There are good performances though and a neat payoff that’ll make you want to go back and see certain moments of the film again, just probably not the whole thing. If the names Kevin Drew and Feist don’t mean anything to you, you can probably skip this one, but since I’m a big fan of their music I was curious to watch and was rewarded with an interesting, though flawed film.

Watch The Water at:  Pitchfork