jollro Review of Raw Footage

Raw Footage (2005)

Raw footage as a metaphor for building a marriage out of a wedding

[28 May 2015]

Raw Footage is built around an unintended family reunion that happens as a result of invitations to a ceremony for the renewal of a couple's wedding vows. The hand-held camera work is built into this self-referential movie which attempts to serve as an honest (raw?) look at singleness, divorce, love, romance, engagement, infidelity, and marriage in members of an extended family. The movie explores the question of whether there are reasons for hope in the face of multiple real-life examples of marriages gone sour. The film even implies that some bad marriages are bad because the couples get along best being part of a bad marriage! At the same time, there are reasons for believe in marriage and wanting it to work even when more than half of all marriages fail. At one point, the primary cameraman/character, wondering aloud why he should marry, asks his grandfather, who suggests that his grandson that he use different models of expectation than his own family members, that he give himself more credit ("for the sake of my great grandkids") than assuming his life is going to be like all the members of his family around him.