Psyche

A favorite hobby of mine is to spend a day at no-name festivals, many of which have screenings monthly. One does not attend these festivals with expectations of refined cinematography or flawless scripts. At these types of events, you know what you're going to get-the passion projects of hobbyists. For these reasons, I typically do not leave reviews on such films of novice filmmakers who are still developing their technique. However, the treatment of Greco-Roman mythology in this film is an abject travesty. I was initially excited to see that an interpretation of the eponymous tale was among the films screened that day, but was left utterly disenchanted. Fortunately, the films screened after this one rescued my Sunday.

Before discussing the technical aspects of the film, I'll briefly describe the impressions made by the narrative content (sans spoilers). The script presents a watered-down and poorly paced version of the Psyche myth. The actual phraseology of the dialogue is bizarre. I understand the writer's intent to use early-modern English to transport the audience into the enchanting world of classical mythology, but the dialogue extends far past Shakespearean prose into outright cringeworthy territory and actually makes immersion more difficult for the viewer. It is unclear to me if the script was written from scratch for this production, or adapted from a poor English translation of the original tale. For context, I have read Apuleius' original Latin text and the authoritative Spanish translation by García Gual, but never an English version.

If one can stomach the emetic language, it is then a far greater challenge to witness the presentation of the narrative. This version is devoid of the philosophical questions the original text explores with the reader about the nature of the soul, love, trust, and human growth. Rather, this version seems to be intended as an entertainment-driven fairytale piece within the likes of The Princess Bride or The Vicomte de Bragelonne, which are quite engaging stories! However, the film is simply not entertaining at the superficial level of swashbuckling adventure. When the film's insipid, often embarrassing dialogue is interrupted by a brief flash of action, it lacks any impact. Instead, it is saturated with vomitous melodrama and accompanied by flailing, ham-fisted camerawork. Inevitably, any such apogee is flanked by the loquacious conversations.

The technical aspects of film consist of sets, lighting, acting, cinematography, sound, and editing.

As far as sets go, the scenes taking place outdoors appear to have been chosen rather arbitrarily but look fine, which is on par with films one traditionally sees at nameless film festivals. However, the indoor sets are gaudy, forced, and lacking all imagination. The indoor set design is the paragon of generic fairytales-ostentatious curtains, candelabras, oil paintings, surfaces covered in kitschy cloth. One must wonder how much of this production's budget ended up in antique stores and estate sales to amass these items. Overall, the indoor sets are the same hackneyed design you've seen a hundred times before. They're more reminiscent of a hastily assembled set for a high school play rather than a meticulously planned and coordinated film operation.

Hand-in-hand with set design goes lighting, one of the most important aspects of the craft! The lighting is brutish and vulgar, even by the low standards of amateur filmmaking. The viewer is often bombarded by multiple colors of light from different angles. In any one scene, the key light may be red, while the fill light might be green, and the backlight could be blue! The specks of practical light, a staple of dramatic lighting, are a welcome relief to the neon circus of the stage lights! It makes much of the film hard to look at. Having these multiple conflicting light tones is often used to great success in films like Blade Runner, but was done so crudely in Psyche that the viewer is simply nauseated. The director is likely trying to represent the internal storm of feelings and motivations that a character is feeling in a scene, which is how this technique is commonly used. The director should consider examining films of Almodóvar, who uses bold lighting techniques to superb effect.

Acting alone can make or break any production, and here we hit a bright spot in this production! Although it's been about two weeks since I saw the film, I recall being impressed with the performance of the actress portraying Psyche and, to an extent, the actor portraying Theodore. The former presented a notable level of conventional talent. The latter was not necessarily conventionally skilled but seemed to bring a level of sincerity and authenticity to the role that was very entertaining to watch. The other performances seemed to be in line with other films of this level, although these actors must be commended; they had quite a difficult job given the atrocious script they had to work with.

Unfortunately, the value in the portrayals of Psyche and Theodore was vitiated by the particularly crude camerawork. Bizarre angles, dizzying handheld shots, and relentless use of partial shots. The third point really stuck with me. I recall shots cutting to an actor's hand or feet in the middle of their dialogue. This technique is commonly used to create a sense of mystery, but, like the clumsy camerawork, it was executed so poorly as to have no effect other than to disorient, and, eventually, annoy the viewer.

The sound design was quite poor compared to its peers at the festival. Noticeable clipping, much of the dialogue sounds like it was recorded in a basement or garage, and a backing soundtrack that sounds like every other piece of equally uncreative background music created and looped in GarageBand. Minimal, if any, audio engineering was done.

Finally, editing is what ties all the elements of a film together into the finished product. Like the audio, minimal editing was done. At times, shots are very clumsily thrown next to one another in a jarring and confusing fashion. The color correction was on par with films of this level, which is a shame given how it was debased by the unpleasant cacophony of colors used in some of the indoor scenes. It's easy to rush to judgment, but color grading is a very nuanced process, which most filmmakers develop later after focusing on other aspects of the craft. Overall, the weaknesses of the individual narrative and technical components were unable to be saved by editing to create even a moderately enjoyable mise-en-scène.

One question that I can't seem to answer is: Who is this film intended for? As discussed earlier, this film is not meant as a cerebral exploration of the underlying philosophy of the source material for the erudite scholar of antiquity. Rather, it's presented through a modern lens of a simple fairytale or adventure story. But is this fairytale intended for adult or child audiences? With its unsophisticated storytelling, tortuous dialogue, and lack of effective adventure elements, I can't identify an audience that would enjoy Psyche.