The text of sonnet 93 is interesting as it discusses the challenge of seeing betrayal in the face of someone so beautiful as the subject. Whereas others will tell tales with their odd wrinkles, or frowns, such a beautiful face can never be less than perfect, so there is no easy physical way to tell if, in the heart, there is still love or if something is changing. Reading it I was interested to see the short film take on this, because it offers a good subject, but also I wondered how the theme of 93 led them to set it on the High Line Park in Manhattan (a disused elevated train line). Truth be told, having watched the film a few times, I am still really none the wiser.
I am hoping that I must have missed something, or that there is something in the setting or characters that I do not have the reference points to pick up on, because the alternative is that the film does almost nothing with the text other than read it out. The film consists of a family of three (two adults and an older teenage girl) walking through the park, and the mother narrates the sonnet over these images. I kept watching the images waiting for a performance that would add context to the narration, or some indication that there was something going on with these characters that would make the sonnet clearer, but really I got nothing. The actors walk around the park giving very natural performances – by which I mean that basically they just look like any of the other visitors walking around taking photos, or sitting on the benches; the only difference is that they are in the centre of the frame. Aside from a moment where the mother lingers and stares off into the distance there is nothing that really would suggest any connection with the text at all.
Technically it is not particularly memorable either. So-so shots of the park and area around it as the characters move through them, but nothing too smart or sharp about it at all. For some reason though, the film runs to 4 minutes, which is long for the films in this series – and particularly long where none of that 4 minutes really does anything of note. At its best, this series has films which bring the sonnets to live by virtue of their delivery, adding context with performance and location – this film is the opposite of that, as it seemingly has no connection between narration and characters (or at least not to this viewer) and it is only memorable for how little it does with the text! I noted that in the end credits the film takes time to thank loads of people, and has 6 seconds of black screen, but yet doesn't include the standard slide of credits for the Sonnet Project staff that almost every other film in the series does; I wondered if there is something behind this?
I am hoping that I must have missed something, or that there is something in the setting or characters that I do not have the reference points to pick up on, because the alternative is that the film does almost nothing with the text other than read it out. The film consists of a family of three (two adults and an older teenage girl) walking through the park, and the mother narrates the sonnet over these images. I kept watching the images waiting for a performance that would add context to the narration, or some indication that there was something going on with these characters that would make the sonnet clearer, but really I got nothing. The actors walk around the park giving very natural performances – by which I mean that basically they just look like any of the other visitors walking around taking photos, or sitting on the benches; the only difference is that they are in the centre of the frame. Aside from a moment where the mother lingers and stares off into the distance there is nothing that really would suggest any connection with the text at all.
Technically it is not particularly memorable either. So-so shots of the park and area around it as the characters move through them, but nothing too smart or sharp about it at all. For some reason though, the film runs to 4 minutes, which is long for the films in this series – and particularly long where none of that 4 minutes really does anything of note. At its best, this series has films which bring the sonnets to live by virtue of their delivery, adding context with performance and location – this film is the opposite of that, as it seemingly has no connection between narration and characters (or at least not to this viewer) and it is only memorable for how little it does with the text! I noted that in the end credits the film takes time to thank loads of people, and has 6 seconds of black screen, but yet doesn't include the standard slide of credits for the Sonnet Project staff that almost every other film in the series does; I wondered if there is something behind this?