The Official "gravida" reaction thread

[pryor15]

fyodor, blarg, sl,

dvds shipped today. thanks again.

[SL__72]

Sweet.

[Enrique]

Looking forward to seeing the movie. I liked you're other two films (Guard Duty and L'Attente). Strangely I dreamt last night that I was watching Gravida, that is completely random, but there were some strange scenes of a sad unhappy woman and I think my brain connected it to the trailer of Gravida I saw a couple of months ago. The brain works in misteryous ways.

[pryor15]

that is pretty weird. was the film in your dream any good?

[Enrique]

[ QUOTE ]
that is pretty weird. was the film in your dream any good?

[/ QUOTE ]

Couldn't tell. I think it was just like a glimpse, seeing a woman crying on screen then thinking "that is Gravida" then the dream went on in another direction.

[SL__72]

I liked it. More when it isn't 4am.

[pryor15]

[ QUOTE ]
I liked it. More when it isn't 4am.

[/ QUOTE ]

nice. we play really well to the insanely tired crowd

[fyodor]

Got my Gravida in the mail today. Having previously read the reviews pryor posted, there were no surprises plot-wise. It is however, one of those films where knowing the entire story in advance actually adds to the viewing experience rather than detracting from it. I enjoyed my second look more than the first.

Although there is a linear storyline, it’s more about mood and emotion. It’s about the space Kristin is in, pregnant and lonely. Things that go a long way towards getting this across are the pacing, nice and slow with some relatively lengthy shots for such a short film, and the music, some great, sparse songs that are mostly just vocals and quiet acoustic guitar. ‘Careless Love’ is especially poignant.

A lot of camera time is also devoted to one-person scenes with no dialogue and little sound. It’s not a ‘sit back and munch some popcorn’ kind of movie. It’s about something more than a catchy story trying to appeal to as large an audience as possible.

Adam Kukic does a fine job as the delivery guy. He’s believable and natural. Rachel Shaw is good through most of the film but I wasn’t too enamored with her crying performance. She appeared to be really forcing it. The snot was a nice touch though.

What I didn’t like about Gravida was that I felt absolutely no empathy for Kristin. Things that turned me off to feeling sympathetic were her being bitter enough about the guy that dumped her to leave his mutilated photo out for her new date to witness, the amount of wine she consumed even though she was pregnant, and the fact that she was attempting to get the guy to sleep with her on a first date without bringing the conversation around to her condition. It wouldn’t be a stretch to suppose that she got pregnant on purpose to hook the guy who dumped her. She just seemed like that sort of girl.

So when the film ended I felt it had done an excellent job of characterizing a person I didn’t care about. It may be I’m just too much of a sociopath to feel sorry for people who feel sorry for themselves, but I would have liked Gravida more if I could have cried with her.

Now that may not have been the point, but the music made me feel otherwise. The music was getting the sadness across. But I wasn’t sad for Kristin.

I still liked Gravida a lot, and there is promise that we could see some great stuff from McNelly down the road.


Question for pryor (or anyone else who might know the answer): There was something in the sound – or missing from the sound – that made it obvious this was a low budget movie. I’ve seen some big budget films with little to no sound (Antonioni comes to mind) where this works without seeming cheap. So what is it? It happens a lot in low budget Canadian productions. Could be something about the lighting as well but I think it's the sound that gives me that feel.

[pryor15]

awesome. you both got the DVD and liked the film...whew

[ QUOTE ]
What I didn’t like about Gravida was that I felt absolutely no empathy for Kristin. Things that turned me off to feeling sympathetic were her being bitter enough about the guy that dumped her to leave his mutilated photo out for her new date to witness, the amount of wine she consumed even though she was pregnant, and the fact that she was attempting to get the guy to sleep with her on a first date without bringing the conversation around to her condition. It wouldn’t be a stretch to suppose that she got pregnant on purpose to hook the guy who dumped her. She just seemed like that sort of girl.

So when the film ended I felt it had done an excellent job of characterizing a person I didn’t care about. It may be I’m just too much of a sociopath to feel sorry for people who feel sorry for themselves, but I would have liked Gravida more if I could have cried with her.

[/ QUOTE ]

in the writing, that was the single toughest thing to figure out, how to make her a protagonist that people can feel some empathy for and in the end we had to go for the idea that the audience may not agree with what she's doing but they hopefully can understand why she's doing it. some people won't be able to turn that into empathy, some will. so it goes.

as a filmmaker, i guess i'm not asking for empathy, i'm asking for understanding, and i don't know how often films do that, which tends to make people uncomfortable. most dramas seem to have a message, or a point of view, but this one doesn't, really. the film itself is neutral. the fact that you liked the film but didn't necessarily like the character means that on some level i did my job, i guess. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

oh, and she doesn't drink any of the wine.

the pictures...well...that's my cameo [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] seriously, though, the pictures obviously give her a backstory of having a boyfriend who we can assume knocked her up and then at some point took off (why else would she cut him out of a photo?) and i wasn't sure people would pick up on that if we didn't put at least one of the photos in a prominent spot...if you look closely, there's a photo in the bedroom that's been put face down. Adam almost sits on it.


oh, and your question: it's a sound thing. microphones are expensive. the sound in the office scene in "gravida" got all [censored] up, which is probably the part you're thinking of, and there was no way to fix it without ADR, which wasn't an option.

[Blarg]

Since you can use them in pretty much everything you do, a good mike or two would be an excellent investment.