September 29, 2024
FILM: MY FIRST FILM
DIRECTED BY: ZIA ANGER
STARRING: ODESSA YOUNG, DEVON ROSS, COLE DOMAN
RATING: 3 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
I stumbled across My First Film on the MUBI streaming platform the other day. I hadn’t heard anything about it and, unlike how I often get films from other distributors, I wasn’t given an early screener to review it. (Apparently, it was first released in 2019.) My plan was to just watch it for enjoyment purposes and not worry about writing a response. However, there’s a lot to this film that warrants a serious viewing and discussion – especially for anyone who makes, or wants to make, movies.
My First Film concerns a young filmmaker who is attempting to produce and direct something that is extremely personal to her. She experiences a struggle that may be far beyond what she imagined. I know from where she is coming. I wrote a couple of feature length scripts when I was a bit younger that ultimately felt more like exorcising some deep feelings within me than creating something that was ready to be produced. Vita (Odessa Young) is the writer/director here who wants to tell the story of her dying father and lesbian mothers. We learn, as the film goes on, that what Vita is creating is a sort of parallel story to the reality of her own life. Is this part of the reason why she struggles making the film? Perhaps. It’s either too far away from her own life or too close.
The bigger problems become associated with the production itself, which is plagued by a series of issues: the crew is constantly either drunk or high, her lead actress can’t manage to emote a “real” scream, her boyfriend offers unasked for input, and one of the actors is involved in a serious car crash. While not every film production is besieged with so many issues, making a film can be a heart-wrenching and personally devastating experience. I’ve made short films where I had to deal with locations suddenly being unavailable, actors and camera operators dropping out at the last minute, rain delays, and, worst of all, a crew member actually losing all of the footage that was shot.
One of my favorite movies about the difficulties associated with making films is Tom DiCillo’s excellent 1995 film Living in Oblivion. Steve Buscemi plays a frustrated independent filmmaker trying to make an artful and personal project that goes awry several times due to various off screen mishaps. There are a lot of great humorous scenes and performances (Catherine Keener, Dermot Mulroney, James Le Gros, Peter Dinklage) in the film that make it a very eye-opening yet entertaining look at movie making.
Writer/director Zia Anger is much more dramatic here and perhaps even closer to reality today than DiCillo’s film. She compares the experience of making a film to one akin to having a child. Many months are spent nurturing and developing what will hopefully be a wanted and perfect final product. Interestingly, her Vita also becomes pregnant during the filming. She considers having an abortion. Is she also trying to abandon and abort her dream film?
There is an interesting scene near the end when Anger herself is featured with the real crew that is making the film we are watching. It’s a very satisfying scene that should have represented the film’s closing moments. Unfortunately, there is one more final scene that takes the material and metaphors here too far. I’m sure Anger had a reason for including it but it’s pretty jarring and takes away from the meta narrative that she had just landed upon so well.
Still, this is a film about filmmaking that anyone who wants to go into directing should see as a lesson in what can go wrong in the process of creating even a low-budget film. There are certainly moments that are a bit esoteric here but the overall depiction of filmmaking is not far off the mark.
My First Film is currently streaming on MUBI and is available to rent via Amazon Prime.
FILM: MY FIRST FILM
DIRECTED BY: ZIA ANGER
STARRING: ODESSA YOUNG, DEVON ROSS, COLE DOMAN
RATING: 3 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
I stumbled across My First Film on the MUBI streaming platform the other day. I hadn’t heard anything about it and, unlike how I often get films from other distributors, I wasn’t given an early screener to review it. (Apparently, it was first released in 2019.) My plan was to just watch it for enjoyment purposes and not worry about writing a response. However, there’s a lot to this film that warrants a serious viewing and discussion – especially for anyone who makes, or wants to make, movies.
My First Film concerns a young filmmaker who is attempting to produce and direct something that is extremely personal to her. She experiences a struggle that may be far beyond what she imagined. I know from where she is coming. I wrote a couple of feature length scripts when I was a bit younger that ultimately felt more like exorcising some deep feelings within me than creating something that was ready to be produced. Vita (Odessa Young) is the writer/director here who wants to tell the story of her dying father and lesbian mothers. We learn, as the film goes on, that what Vita is creating is a sort of parallel story to the reality of her own life. Is this part of the reason why she struggles making the film? Perhaps. It’s either too far away from her own life or too close.
The bigger problems become associated with the production itself, which is plagued by a series of issues: the crew is constantly either drunk or high, her lead actress can’t manage to emote a “real” scream, her boyfriend offers unasked for input, and one of the actors is involved in a serious car crash. While not every film production is besieged with so many issues, making a film can be a heart-wrenching and personally devastating experience. I’ve made short films where I had to deal with locations suddenly being unavailable, actors and camera operators dropping out at the last minute, rain delays, and, worst of all, a crew member actually losing all of the footage that was shot.
One of my favorite movies about the difficulties associated with making films is Tom DiCillo’s excellent 1995 film Living in Oblivion. Steve Buscemi plays a frustrated independent filmmaker trying to make an artful and personal project that goes awry several times due to various off screen mishaps. There are a lot of great humorous scenes and performances (Catherine Keener, Dermot Mulroney, James Le Gros, Peter Dinklage) in the film that make it a very eye-opening yet entertaining look at movie making.
Writer/director Zia Anger is much more dramatic here and perhaps even closer to reality today than DiCillo’s film. She compares the experience of making a film to one akin to having a child. Many months are spent nurturing and developing what will hopefully be a wanted and perfect final product. Interestingly, her Vita also becomes pregnant during the filming. She considers having an abortion. Is she also trying to abandon and abort her dream film?
There is an interesting scene near the end when Anger herself is featured with the real crew that is making the film we are watching. It’s a very satisfying scene that should have represented the film’s closing moments. Unfortunately, there is one more final scene that takes the material and metaphors here too far. I’m sure Anger had a reason for including it but it’s pretty jarring and takes away from the meta narrative that she had just landed upon so well.
Still, this is a film about filmmaking that anyone who wants to go into directing should see as a lesson in what can go wrong in the process of creating even a low-budget film. There are certainly moments that are a bit esoteric here but the overall depiction of filmmaking is not far off the mark.
My First Film is currently streaming on MUBI and is available to rent via Amazon Prime.