I watched two films this weekend. One was Empty Spaces and the other was a film called Frozen (not the animated Disney film, but the 2010 thriller about three skiers stuck on a chair lift). Neither film was particularly good, but they both did one thing very well, and that was their use and handling of dramatic tension.
The two films took very different approaches to this aspect of their stories, which is why they make excellent partners for comparing and contrasting. On the one hand, Frozen showed us three characters trapped in a claustrophobic setting in a life-or-death situation. There were a ton of obvious dramatic elements at play: what if they fall? What if they freeze to death? The fact that they spend most of the film on a ski might make you think that you'd get bored pretty quickly, but the filmmakers made up for the one tiny location by packing the bulk of the film with sheer edge-of-your-seat tension. It's one thing after the next, and it's very well done because it is very realistic. It works, because we know it could happen in real life. It's like Open Water in that respect. But while that film failed because it really was boring, this one succeeds by handling the tension and the drama infinitely better. Perhaps the filmmakers here studied the earlier film and learned from its mistakes. Kudos on them if they did.
Empty Spaces, on the other hand, took a somewhat opposite approach. It too gave us a handful of characters in a dramatic situation. But while Frozen gave us upfront, in-your-face tension, Empty Spaces provides instead a sort of slow-burning tension. Unlike Frozen's life-or-death scenario, Empty Spaces presents an emotional scenario of a man at a crossroads in his life after his wife leaves him and their daughters. It's filled with emotional tension throughout, but at the start of the film it is barely apparent. We're not given all the details about the situation, but instead we're shown these characters in their life, and slowly things begin to unravel and certain things come to light. We see the tension slowly build, and like in Frozen we can't look away. Here too the tension is very realistic and very well done.
Neither approach is entirely original, but both are rare birds these days, so it was nice to see these films, and back-to-back no less. I got lucky, having happened upon them both by chance. Overall, however, no one will ever call either of these films a masterpiece. Both suffer from the innate shortfalls of their small budgets (amateur actors, limited locations, and technical constraints).
I had a unique viewing experience, as I couldn't help but compare these two films, having watched them so close together. In doing so, I was better able to more easily pick up on the things that they did so well. If I had seen the films by themselves, I don't know if I would have appreciated them as much. If you're so inclined, I recommend viewing these two as a double feature.
Thanks for reading!
