George's Corner...

TRADE OFFS

Independent Film Society Review
September 2003

Before commenting on "Trade Offs", a few years ago, I discovered the International Channel.

Home from work, after dinner and snooping on cable, I saw a show called the Korean top ten. It is a TV show about the top ten music videos in Korea. They make large, mini-movie, sweeping romantic epics with grand, epic camera movements and photography.

I was completely blown away. I then found that there is a show for Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Arabic and more music video shows.

We here in San Diego, are exposed to little of the artistic culture from other countries. We have a variety of ethnic restaurants.

There are fine Indian restaurants here in North County. There is a large world of peoples from countries like India that are brilliant artists. I actually bought two fashion magazines from Taiwan because they are so brilliantly made, and the artistic content is wonderfully intelligent.

"Trade Offs" is a film made by very bright young Indian people. The Indian film culture uses the word "Bollywood" as a satire on us.

I have seen several Indian films by different producers. I see the same wealth of talent in this film.

Problems like overdubbing, or Indian people speaking English, can "distance" an American audience not used to an entire foreign cast. We are ethnic people like all others, and we miss the opportunity to see some real talent from other countries.

The above group wants to take you on a really worthy journey this Saturday.

The filmic style is towards music video, in that in most scenes the music is dominant so your focus is on the music with the scene as a background to it.

Indian people love music and weave it through their stories. Some Indian filmmakers shoot in normal dramatic reality style as we know it. A lot of Korean, Japanese and others use the music video style and it is a completely acceptable style.

This is not a film with a new story, or about "important" people or events. The creative work of the filmmaker is to show us how every character has depth, and show the character's journey in a way interesting to the audience. This film does that and more by having a complex view of the characters, and a interesting filmic style.

There is a song that is repeated throughout the film. I can't understand the words, but I think they comment on the story. We are used to most independent films being in the normal real-time film style. The music-dominant montages through the scenes will be a real treat Saturday.

We do not expect technical greatness in an independent film due to budget and time. This film has this added aspect of the music scenes acting as a narrative commentary on the story, the music as third person. We will be treated to this extra emotionally lyrical view of the story. A way that Indian people look at life.

Some party animals above. Indian woman have a joyfull way of expressing themselves through music as a important part of their daily lives.

The music, acting, photography and screenplay are very well done. Complex series of shots are used to expand on one in individual scenes as small montages to comment on the character's realities in the story in a very effective way.

There are some very good, almost mythic shots in the film.

The use of the Solana Beach station is excellent. A lot of inventive individual shots in each scene. This is what fleshes out the film and gives it depth. The more complex photography raises the film to a higher professional level.

There are "trade offs" when making a low budget film. Sometimes a very worthy story shot at a very low technical level, or a very simple story shot in a technically artistic way. We go to see what can be accomplished by a group of hardy souls with little time or money, witness their adventure.

This Indian group wonderfully weaves their culture into San Diego California life, and we will see this, Saturday, at the Schulman theatre by the Dove library.

The above picture shows the two main characters-- Manu and Sapna. With Manu in a dominant position in the composition over Sapna. Our modern North County world does not have a lot of visually dramatic places like you would see in a 1940's film, so you have to use your filmmaking skills to make the journey of your characters through this world dramatic, and this is done in this film.

There are some scenes that I would do differently, but on the whole, a very well thought out artistic creation. This film shows one of the "ethnic" groups of bright young people in the world with a lot of creative energy.

In this film I could see that there is the talent that could be used as the creative core of a good film company, and young people worth watching, as they make their way through this story.

Sapna and Nehal are shown above.

Towards the end, I was thinking, "Oh no, this is falling down into a pit with the dismally boring attitudes of the main antagonist for a boring ending", but the story moves on to a creative and interesting ending with the focus on Sapna and Neha. This film shows inventive story and film work throughout. In any story you have to move through the sometimes negative attitudes of a character as they are part of building contrast and conflict in the character's journeys.

When you creatively build depth or layers to the story, then you move past these tough moments to the next part of a richly done story.

This film goes to an ending worthy to see.

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