JaydeeRichardson

A lot of potential to tackle some interesting topics, and could've, in better hands, lead to some important discussions on the contrast between the objectification of women in cheesecake photography, and the lack of objectification in nudism. Alas, it fails to properly explore that. Although, doesn't miss the mark entirely.

Unfortunately, the poster and several scenes may play into the objectification of women, something that could've probably been fixed with better writing and cinematography. The story itself isn't bad, but could've been better, and the dialogue can certainly be improved. And Brenda Denaut and Joel Holt's acting certainly isn't the best, but is passable in the most part.

The interviews with nudists are certainly genuine, and they do seem to share a lot of the same attitudes to the nudists I've been in community with. Really enjoyed those interviews, and I do think they are inciteful into the views of the nudist community in the 1960s (are largely now too).

On the whole, I think it's got a lot of potential that maybe wasn't fully realised. This is exactly the kind of film that should be remade, although, ideally, with the input of a woman in a producer or writer role, and maybe focus less on the nudist angle, and focus more on the mental state of Danielle.

The concept of an artist getting romantically involved with her muse, only for it to end badly, but they can't stop thinking about each other, could've been done well. However, in this film, it's unclear what's real and what's a dream and it's unclear whether the two were actually involved with each other.

The editing wasn't great, it didn't allow for scenes to breathe. Just showed what it wanted to show, moved on, making it difficult to process what was actually happening. The acting was sub-par, especially from Emanuela Lucaci. Her line delivery was poor, and she only had one line of dialogue, which sounded like it was ADR, and didn't quite fit. The portrayal of someone losing their mind over the situation was pretty poor too, and not remotely accurate. And then there's the sound. The sound's mixed poorly, sounds like brush strokes and the one line of dialogue is too loud, but none of the sound is important to the story. The music choice was weird too. In the most part, the score was great, until it got to the sequence of the painter doing some kind of dance, and it started playing some dubstep-influenced club track, or something, that didn't fit with the rest of the film. Nor did that scene. I get what they were going for, that she's losing her mind, too hung up on this guy, but, was executed poorly.

Cinematography was passable. Could've been much better.

On the whole, didn't enjoy it, not enough redeeming qualities to overshadow it's faults.

On the whole, the visuals are incredible. However, there's one scene (the nude woman outside) where the lighting could be much better (looks like they used natural light for that scene). Other than that, it's pretty great.

Really loved the score too. Fit with the visuals almost perfectly. Only complain about that is the piano towards the end, which is maybe a bit too cliché.

Another thing worth noting, is the inclusion of MOPS DanceSyndrome felt exploitative (MOPS DanceSyndrome is a dance company made of dancers with Down Syndrome). Whether or not they were being exploited, I don't know. I assume not, but it felt that way, primarily because there was no reason (story wise) for the dancers to all have Down Syndrome.

Which leads me on to the story. Couldn't really figure out what things were meant to represent (didn't read the description on Vimeo, so perhaps that explains it). Perhaps more could've been done to explain it. That being said, it's abstract, so one could argue the story isn't the main focus and the visuals are, which it did really well at (in the most part).