First Viewing.
2010 saw the Duplass brothers cross over from indie darlings into mainstream sell-outs successes with the not too shabby Cyrus, starring Jonah Hill and John C. Reilly, but back when they were still cool in 2007 they made The Puffy Chair and co-created “Mumblecore”. Now, somewhat ashamedly, it’s taken me an extremely long amount of time to finally catch this movie. I won’t go into too much detail explaining why it’s taken so long, except to say that the dvd was ruthless stolen from me before I had the chance to experience it’s delights. Having finally seen it, I now feel slightly more hipster and can also seriously start to contemplate that move to Portland.
Before I decided to write my little review for The Puffy Chair I skipped over the IMDB message board for the film, and, apparently, everyone in the known universe hates it. I suppose I can see why. No one likes change, especially when it comes to filmmaking, but, you know, not every shot has to be in focus and who cares if the camera wobbles so much that you’re close to travel-sickness? I found it rather endearing once I became used to it. In fact I admire someone who makes their film in an untraditional way. And I’m not totally adverse to a little pretension even….
The film’s story is basically about love, and what love is. It avoids the pitfalls of the standard “indie” movie which’ll dismiss love all together as a Hollywood myth, but it does, at times, have a cynical side. I guess it needs to, in truth. You can’t make a movie like this, a movie about connecting with people, without having the characters question their motives for being in a relationship and thus what it means to truly love someone. The movie is far from perfect, but it has heart, you can really see the love the director has for filmmaking, and that’s what counts, particularly when you’re making a movie for $15,000.
Marks out of ten- Seven
cigarettesandmovies 