As I watched "In April", it became immediately apparent that director/producer Carlo Bruno is someone who loves movies, especially the more esoteric visual aspects of composing a frame and then using many of today's film making tools to make his compositions even more visually arresting. Throughout the first half of the film, I was reminded of David Lynch's early film making style - a combination of melodramatic music and scenes that keep the viewer slightly on edge. Technically, this film does a masterful job of that, and a scan of the credits reveals that Mr. Bruno handled much of the post-production himself. Impressive indeed. His technical prowess is fully evident, but the film would have benefitted from a bit of tightening. The story itself is fairly straightforward and tells the tale of a suicidal man redeemed by assisting a ghost find her true resting place. Perhaps having a script editor and another voice in editing suite would have tempered some of Mr. Bruno's visual narrative focus which would have helped the overall product. At nearly two hours in length, an unbiased voice would probably have found twenty minutes or more that could be edited out. Still, for lovers of independent film, there is a lot to appreciate with this psychological suspense story, and I recommend a watch to see how a passionate filmmaker's vision can make a very interesting film.
