(II) ONE HOUR PHOTO
Directed and written by: Mark Romanek;
Cast: Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan, Dylan Smith…
#4 In ONE HOUR PHOTO, Robin Williams, again in this season, after his great role in Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia, steps out of his favorite comic roles, and shows his extraordinary capacities of his great acting talent. Williams has the role of Seemore Sy Parish, completely lonely and alienated elder man working at the repressive, monotonous work at the photo-laboratory placed in a typical trade center of a typical American suburbia.
Living completely alone, spending the evenings bluntly watching TV, Sy idealizes the young and at the surface – completely perfect married couple, Nina and Will, together with their nine-year-old son Jake. His obsession with this family develops at that level that Sy regularly develops copies of their photos for himself, making a photo-wall in his home, at the same time imagining himself as a family friend/relative “uncle Sy”. But his idea of an ideal family breaks completely breaks apart in the moment when through the various photos that he develops at the shop, discovers that Will cheated on his wife with a younger girl. Sy experiences a complete breakdown, and his “breaking point” is when he looses his job. Then, the flow of the circumstances leads him toward the (un)expected solution of the whole film plot…
#5 ONE HOUR PHOTO, screened in the official competition of the Sundance Film Festival 2002, is an authorial achievement of Mark Romanek, a director known by his great visual creations for the band Nine Inch Nails (the video-clip for the hymn “Closer”), Madonna (the video-clip for her song “Bedtime Stories”), Lenny Kravitz and many others, creations that definitively placed the way of producing, perception, and in general, of the modules of the modern video spots as a serious visual, even cinematographic field. His refined and exceptional visual sense comes to a full expression in this film. With the help of his associates Jeff Cronenweth, the director of the photography in the cult David Fincher’s film Fight Club, and the production designer Tom Foden, known by his work at the extraordinary thriller The Cell by Tarsem Singh, who also emerged from the video production field, #6 Romanek presents to us, by the every – even the smallest – detail, the odd personal life of Sy, creating the required atmosphere of alienation and emptiness, constructing almost every film frame up to the level of perfection. The Robin Williams’ performance is excellent, showing us in the very detail and in the very whole, both – his acting potential and great talent. Williams plays the Sy’s character completely living it within/with him, making this character in this film so convincible, that it is a creation for pure admiration.
On the specific dimension of the ONE HOUR PHOTO also contributes the interesting music solution, where, besides the original music score, in the emotionally fulfilled scenes, the most recognizable music moments of the American Beauty (the beautiful lyrical theme from this film) and of the Requiem For a Dream (the incredibly tensed and the painfully intensive theme from the – maybe the best – soundtrack in the last few years) are being used (or more correct – implanted).
All this components make ONE HOUR PHOTO an interesting representative of the thriller genre that carry the psychological pre-sign, definitely deserving the attention of the film fans.
Translated by: Petar Volnarovski