Pine Flat (2006)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Sharon Lockhart

Writer:

Sharon Lockhart (writer)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Set in a small town in the Sierra Nevadas, Pine Flat is a look at youth and a meditation on nature, socialization, and solitude. |

Runtime:

Greece:138 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

compares with watching paint peel, with a few good points mixed in

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

OK, well, I saw this film at the Broadway Theater in Salt Lake at the Sundance Film Festival. This film consists of twelve ten minute shorts which have a still sixteen millimeter camera fixated on a part of nature in the Sierra Nevadas apparently called Pine Flat. In each of the shorts one or more kids are shown, along with a shot of nature.

For the first half of the film, the first six shorts, there was a serious problem with the sound. There was a very loud hissing. Now, normally one would expect to not have this impact a review. However, during the question and answer period after the film completed, the director said that she had to walk out and go see another film because the sound was so bad.

Why in the heck did she leave the rest of us in that room to suffer then? Not stopping the film at that point was inexcusable. She stated that a key part of the film was to foster an appreciation for ambiance. And yet, when that ambiance was destroyed for the first six ten minute shorts, she did nothing to inform us or to rescue us from the pain.

As for other aspects of the shorts, some of them felt highly contrived, especially in the shorts which only had one kid in them who was just sitting there - in a clearly "directed fashion." For example, there was this one male kid with a gun of some sort. He looked uneasy just sitting there for ten minutes. He looked as uneasy as we were. Then there was another male kid with a harmonica. The sound was very loud & poor at that point and I had to cover my ears. But regardless his actions looked contrived. What kid is going to hum on a harmonica for ten whole minutes and sit in one fricken place? No one! In another shot, some young teens are shown making out in the grass. And yet in the background we hear some sort of a sport utility vehicle blasting around. We would normally assume that the kids would get up and look to see which other teen just drove up in his souped up four by four, but they just laid there in a forced manner sucking face. So that shot seemed contrived.

Now, there were some better shorts. In the second half of the film, we get to see some girls swinging on a swing attached to a very old and large tree. In another short we get to see some older teens rough housing and smoking in some very nice woods. In the final short we get to see a tree in fog and some kids on occasionally popping in on the bottom of the frame – and the ambient sound in that short was appealing.

So, the shots where kids were moving were much better than where the kids are clearly told they had to stay put. Why? The kids who had to stay put seemed uneasy in almost all cases. They seemed unnatural.

This was an experimental film, and it will probably never be released on DVD. As such it's sad that the director didn't take more of an active role in informing and rescuing the audience from the outrageous sound problems during the first half of the film.

And yes, the second half of the film did cause me to think and ponder about the value of getting out into nature, and about how so many children today are deprived of the wonderful aspects of being out in the trees and grass and away from TV and video games and cell phones. And ambient reflection can be useful.

If the children in some of the shorts hadn't been "directed" to stay put, and if the director herself had rescued us from the poor sound - had stopped the film and fixed the sound problem once and for all before continuing with the film, then I probably would have given the film an eight out of ten. However, since some of the shorts were more painful and contrived, my rating falls to a six, for a second at least. But the sound problem which the director said nothing to us about as she escaped to go view another film to leave us to suffer for the first half of the film brings my overall rating down to a four.

In the future, if any film of this nature is to be shown at Sundance or any film festival, special care MUST be taken to ensure that the film is watchable! If a KEY problem such as sound in an ambiance emphasizing film cannot be fixed, then all the audience should be given passes or refunds.

So maybe parts of the film were good meditation pieces. But if it were every released on DVD, the best value would be to allow people to pick and choose which shorts they want to watch. Normally you'd really only want to watch the parts that interest you. Or on the other hand, instead of watching nature on TV or on the big screen, go out an experience it first hand, and work to preserve what's left.

I suppose in some possible future world if global warming goes out of control, films like this could serve as museum exhibits in institutions built on the poles of the planet where the last remaining survivors of our species live. That is perhaps the primary value of this film. But hopefully those future generations will recognize that our children didn't normally sit in one place for ten minutes at a time in an abnormal fashion - except maybe to watch TV or to play video games.