quietearth [Celluloid 07.23.08] movie review drama



Year: 2008
Release date: Unknown
Director: Alex Cannon & Paul Cannon & Michael Lerman
Writers: Alex Cannon & Paul Cannon & Michael Lerman
IMDB: link
Trailer: link
Review by: quietearth
Rating: 8 out of 10

The title by no means reflects the splendor that is Natural Causes, in fact I'd call it indie filmmaking at it's finest. Shot on what appears to be no budget, the story is set in New York City (and possibly Long Island or upstate) and gives you an intimate look at a relationship right from the yearning of the beginning. I say yearning because anyone who's been passionately in love knows this feeling and every facet of the film is saturated with this or some other intense emotion. You might be thinking "chick flick", no, this isn't, in fact it's a work of art. It's akin to the passion I feel down to my Italian genes when I look at a gorgeous dark haired dame.






This is not a film that tugs at your heart strings to produce some fabricated emotion, but rather a glimpse into a relationship, scrambled into pieces so scattered it toys with your sense of time and understanding. There are complete scenes where an argument is taking place yet the object of said argument is never explained. There's a taxi ride in NYC that drops out to Jersey and is all of a sudden is back in Manhattan. All of these scattered shots are done with pauses of total black screen which only help to induce more disorientation. You never know what's coming next, it's unpredictability at it's finest. We'll switch to a random scene of our lovers playing Tennis on the Nintendo Wii totally naked, then swing over to a long take where the camera follows their every movement and the tension is so thick you can cut it with a knife. This can't even begin to provide some semblance of the film's zeitgeist and neither can the trailer.





The locations used throughout New York are so great I didn't even recognize them and I lived there for 6 years. There's alot of rooftop party scenes, and at one point a camera pans over the entrance to the roof showing our lovers passionately kissing. They're a love making mess, so head over heels you can you can almost hear their hearts beat in unison, but enough about the love. The photography, the camera work, the writing, in fact everything about this film was great, and I would of given this a higher rating, say an 8.5, but the problem is the film was so effective in it's empathy that you could feel the despair firsthand. It was really rather sad at points as I could identify many scenes with past memories. Regardless, I still highly recommend this flick, it's a winner.

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