Another Girl Another Planet

Who would have thought anyone could make something this engaging and cinematic with a toy Fisher-Price camera? ANOTHER GIRL, ANOTHER PLANET is one of those rare movies that has very little narrative, but such perfect-pitch atmosphere and -- well, soul -- that it makes a little nest in the back of your brain and settles down there for the rest of your life. Almereyda uses the shallow depth of field of the Pixelvision camera to explode cinematic space in ways no one with a Panavision camera ever could. Not to mention that the soundtrack is a killer time capsule of the hippest songs of the early Nineties. Once seen (and heard), never forgotten.

I loved this film. I love the use of pixelvision, the way it obscured the image and gave the audience an impression of the scene rather than a clear view of what was going on. This effectively reflected the central character's lack of clarity over his relationships. I also liked the use of cartoon footage, the elephant, the music and the central metaphor. When I watched this back in 1994 at the Warwick Arts Centre the audience was compelled and engaged by the film. Yes it is experimental but the central theme is one we can all relate to which was dealt with in a clever, innovative and unique way. The use of the Fisher-Price PXL2000 camera just goes to show that even in the digital age despite our obsession with high definition images as long as a story is well told the end result will be compelling. I don't think the choice of camera was a gimmick, as I said before I think the pixelation reflected the central character's own lack of clarity.

You'd think a movie shot entirely on a Pixelvision would at least be interesting because of the format. Well it turns out that's not true. This movie is so lame and boring and doesn't do hardly anything cool with the Pixelvision format. It's just a bad student film. I think everyone walked out of the theatre before it was over.

-Paul