Content
The content of this film was quite good in many ways and problematic in some other ways. Much of the film was shown through visual imagery and audio storytelling that I will more thoroughly explore in those sections. With that said, let’s look at the storytelling of this film as it relates to the acting and story.
The physical acting of the characters was quite good. The Christian writes obscure Biblical passages on the wall of his hotel room and carefully checks his rifle as he assembles it. He fits the profile of the avenging angel perfectly, the man who’s perhaps seen Boondock Saints one too many times. The Muslim prays slowly and prepares himself for the jihad, weeping slightly as he prepares. Both men’s performances are quite believable in this.
When we get to verbal acting, it’s a bit more hit and miss. The Christian quotes a passage from the King James Bible about who can be protected, but he starts each section with the old English “Ye” pronounced “yay”, which sounds very stilted and unnatural to his cadence. This causes this crucial scene to feel a bit put on, which turn prevents it from being as believable as it should be. The Muslim has only one phrase, which is the Arabic Prayer, “From God we come. To God we return.” While it’s translated via subtitles, the somberness of his face and speech fits the mental state we believe him to be in.
With that said, the biggest issue this short film had was the fact that it felt very lopsided. Because the Christian writes Bible verses on his wall, listens to an English radio personality, and says his one set of lines in English, we understand that he is about to go to the abortion clinic to kill people who are terminating unborn children. Whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life, anyone can understand how the desire to kill people you believe are killing innocents would be a motivating force.
However, the Muslim has almost nothing with him other than his prayer beads and his prayer cap. None of his prayers are translated into English, so we have no idea of what motivates him to blow up a subway car full of people. The only read we get on him is that he’s emotional as he sheds a few tears during his prayer time. Then he concludes it with the previously quoted stoic prayer. I’m sure the director was trying to show the simplicity of the Muslim and his plan, as he didn’t have any of the “stuff” that the American did. While this is probably realistic, it gives the audience no insight into the character of the Muslim and could easily lead most American audiences to believe that Muslim’s blow up stuff simply because they are Muslim.
Obviously there are a huge number of Muslim’s that don’t blow up things, just like most Christians don’t kill abortion doctors. As such, we really needed to have the Muslim’s prayers translated so that we understood what he was trying to accomplish. Simple subtitles would help immensely.
Visual Look
Even though this piece is in full motion and shot with the gorgeous Varicam and Pro35 lens adapter that Waxler used to shoot Purple Pastures, it actually has a visual look that reminds one of a collage of pictures. Lots of establishing shots, locked-down cameras, XCUs, and minimal in-frame movement of the subjects cause this to feel like a number of newspaper photos that are all cut together after the fact. Additionally, the film is edited somewhat out of order, with the beginning jumping to the climax and then back to the middle and finally to the very end. This allowed Mr. Waxler to make the piece feel much more psychological and to make some of the audio tricks I’ll describe in the next section to really hit home.
One nice bit of lighting and shooting in the film is at the end as both the Christian and Muslim stand at the door to heaven, the light is bright that it mutes the color of their clothes and makes it almost seem like they’ve turned to black and white. This seeming desaturation becomes even more noticeable as the light cuts itself off from them and they're plunged into darkness.
