Dimland

Truly strange—this is a very talky, amateurish, artsy and extremely pretentious zero-budget indie flick with little plot, dislikeable characters and not much acting to speak of... and yet, somehow, it works. It's like the exception that proves the rule.

A young couple goes on vacation at a cottage she grew up vacationing at, only to be visited by a pretentious masked figure who is either some sort of forest spirit or her childhood imaginary friend. She spends the rest of the movie walking through the woods talking with him, to her boyfriend's growing annoyance.

It's hard to explain why it works. It's very much like a fable, there almost nothing to it, and somehow manages to weave the pretentious elements into something of an engaging tapestry. I don't know. It's weird. It should be an awful, awful movie. Virtually every identifiable element of it, looked at on its own, is bad. and yet... it works.

I believe in another review I mentioned the Reuben sandwich. I saw it on a deli menu once: pumpernickel bread, russian dressing, sauer kraut, corned beef, and swiss cheese. Literally my 5 least favorite things all combined into a single sandwich. I had to try it! And when I did... it was good! I am still at a completely loss to explain that, and I am at a complete loss to explain why this movie, made out of everything I dislike about pretentious indie films, is good. But it is.

The one thing I suppose, on reflection, is that lately I've been complaining in reviews about even movies I like very much but which don't have a sense of catharsis, the characters never grow or change (cf. Goodfellas). Whereas here the movie is about a catharsis, and literally nothing else. Maybe that's it.

Either way, it successfully kept me engaged, and ultimately I liked it.

Bizarre.