Fissures
(aka Ecoute Le Temps/2006/Life Size
DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C- Film: C
Inspired
by the likes of Run Lola Run, Alanté
Kavaité’s Fissures (aka Ecoute Le Temps/2006) gives us a young
sound engineer (Emilie Dequenne) who thinks she may be able to pick up previous
audio long gone on her recording unit, but is catching it as if she were many
miles away in outer space as if the sound of speed circled back in the same
direction it once originated. There is
no science fiction about it here, but when her mother is murdered and the
device is still working as such, she is ready to try and find out the truth
about what happened.
Of
course, the idea has been done before with audio in real time with Francis
Coppola’s The Conversation (1974)
and Brian De Palma’s Blow Out
(1981), but this does not always generate that kind of suspense. Yet, it is also not a gimmick film or tries
to sensationalize things, down to a sequence that reminded me of David
Cronenberg’s Spider a bit. Though ambitious, Fissures does not quite fizzle, but goes flat before it hits the
mark.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was soft in a way suggesting a Super
35mm film shoot or even lesser HD digital shoot, though Director of Photography
Dominique Colin tries for some style that makes some sense, yet the color is
still gutted more than one might like.
Detail is also a major issue. The
Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is dialogue-based, has more silence and ambience than you
might expect to its advantage, plus sound effects that are interesting at
times. That is good, but don’t expect a spectacular sound field either. Extras include excerpted scenes and a
trailer.
- Nicholas Sheffo
