AD Project (2006) Reviews

• Watchable

  junk-monkey2019-04-13

  Someone, somewhere wondered what an 1970s Italian UFO film ( I found myself reminded of the bloody awful Occhi dalle stelle (1978) more than once) directed by David Lynch would look like - if he only had about 150 euros to spend on the whole show. There are a few nice edits and interesting shots but they are far outweighed by the number of failed attempts at nice edits and interesting shots. Very little in this movie is shot straight. Everything is funky angles and ultra-bold, in your face framing. The main trouble is that all the funky shots add up to very little. There's an impressive bit of steady cam at one point that starts at the bottom of a liftshaft/staircase. As the lift starts to ascend we steadycam up the stairs, around the shaft, and arrive at the first floor just as the lift arrives and a girl gets into it. (This must have taken more than a few takes to get the timing right.) This shot is followed by a cut to inside the lift - as the girl descends alone to where we started from - and that's it. There's no-one down there. It's not a POV. Doesn't advance the story, or do anything much other than impress. It's just a 'wouldn't it be great if...? shot. There's a lot of that in this film. In the end all the mysterious revisiting the events that may have happened, or may be about to happen, or are happening right now, looping time stuff just becomes hopelessly confused and pointless till, in the end, everyone just stands still in the middle of a field and big lights descend from the sky and everyone looks at them till the film is over. Leaving us none the wiser about anyone's motives for anything.