I got to see this film at the Silver Lake Film festival March 26th and when it first started I thought to myself "Oh no, please don't make have to sit through this." For starters - its hand held on a digital camera - being shot like a home video it's rough, it's raw its all over the place - and here I was thinking another Hack - with a camera - decided he was going to make a movie. Well i was pleasantly surprised.
The story revolves around a group of girls getting set to celebrate a bachelor party - thus is why the film is shot like a home video. As the night goes on nothing goes right - everything falls apart and big secret is revealed. I don't want to give the film away.
Anyway Gordy Hoffman re-affirms the number one thing that can take a film that doesn't look good, has no special affects - and remind us that even the worse visual conditions can be over looked when you have talented actors'.
It was no surprise to me that the actors rehearsed for years why the story was being developed. And it showed. I was quickly disproved that this was a hack who got a camera - he invested the time in the work and - The work paid off.
Just like "Thomas Vinterberg" Along with Lars Von Trier "founding "brothers" of dogme95, a set of rules dedicated to reintroducing the element of risk in film-making" with his classic Festen or US Title The Celebration, A Coat of Snow proves that people can and will be emotionally invested in a story - with out having to be dictated to by the Hollywood machine via sound tracks, cheap camera tricks as long as the fundamental instrument used to tell the story - in this case - the actors' - is well tuned.
