I watched Cloverfield last night, after a lively brainstorm with cfgt about languages (mainly C/C++ vs Python and Lua as a scripting language) and various algorithms regarding probability (sudoku and various stuff!!)

And my goodness… it’s awesome. I have one recommendation for you: bloody watch it!

I must first admit, I am not an alternate reality kind of person. I’m busy enough not to follow all the hype and stuff, so as far as how Slusho.jp is connected to Cloverfield, I’m not really sure (well, I actually know, LOL). Anyways, on to the review.

As usual, I have watched the trailer, and updated myself on the movie before watching it. The movie blurb says ‘Five young New Yorkers throw their friend a going-away party the night that a monster the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city. Told from the point of view of their video camera, the film is a document of their attempt to survive the most surreal, horrifying event of their lives’. I know it’s a monster movie, and I went in expecting a monster movie, nothing more nothing less.

First Impressions
At first, there was no opening title or credits. My first thought was George Lucas and the DGA. Then the film historian in me shut up as things got interesting. There isn’t anything to spoil. This movie is honest. What you see in the trailer, you get.

Film Studies 101
This movie is shot in a very naturalistic manner - i.e. from a first person view. If you don’t know what this means, try watching the Blair Witch Project.

The naturalistic filmmaking style makes the audience feel very personally involved in the story, because it’s shot from the point of view of the common man, as opposed to an all-knowing narator who tells the story to the audience.

Cloverfield
Cloverfield begins with a proclaimation that the is the property of the US Military, codenamed ‘Cloverfield’. The best thing is this movie never breaks this illusion. The movie starts off with a party which was organized for Rob, who was going away to Japan (as the VP of Slusho apparently). Then the monster attacks, and the rest of the movie follows what the blurb says. The rest of the movie was just a recording of how the the 5 friends survived (and slowly get decimated) the attack.

This is a monster movie true and true. Being filmed in a naturalistic style, it only enhances the tension and intensity of the movie. I must admit, this is one of the most intense movies I’ve watched so far. I would draw a close parable to the Blair Witch Project. I think this is very much better than BWP though.

The monster is kept very very mysterious until the last 5 minutes of the show, where the guy holding the camera (and the audience) gets eaten by the monster. The tension, and the fear the characters feel get translated to the audience very well.

I once told Abel that cinema verite (i.e. naturalistic filmmaking) is a lame method to get intense action scenes across to the audience, I take that back now.

There was one scene that vividly reminded me of a home video of the 9/11 attack, and it was chillingly realistic.

Filmmaking
This film is well-paced. It doesn’t have a very distinct 3-act structure (owing to its cinema verite style), but upon closer inspection, it does indeed have a 3-act structure. From start to end, it’s just about the 5 friends, slowly decimated. It doesn’t add anything fancy - like a govt. conspiracy or anything else, which is fine.

JJ Abrams is a genius. He doesn’t dumb this film down for the audience. The audience starts out clueless about the monster, and ends up equally clueless as to what it is. Relationships in the film are implied and not spelled out for the audience. I love this kind of movie making. Some people I know would complain that they felt cheated, because all there was to the movie is a amateur home-movie kind of thing about 5 people running away from a mostly unseen monster.

The monster isn’t the main focus of the film, it is the survival of the 5 friends. Instead, the monster(s) relagates to the background - as nothing more than effective, moving, interacting mis-en-scene.
But that to me, is powerful filmmaking. It is so controlled.

And oh, I felt the ending - “this is the best day of my life” - was so ironic, it was appropriate for the end.

Criticism
There is of course a lot of criticism to this film. The camera, for one is too shaky. But I reckon that’s how normal people with home DV cams film (have you ever watched those amateur films made with a consumer grade DV cam? This movie looks just like that)

As I got out of the cinema, I noticed 2 women and one guy hunched over the corner, holding their mouths. Yep. You need a barf bag if you have motion sickness.

Also, this film feels like an extended trailer (running at 1 hour 20 mins+) for an actual movie (you know, those told with a omnipotent narrator kind). It honestly does feel like a marketing gimmick some 12 hours after watching the film. But it’s still geniusly made. I’m not going to deny that.

Conclusion
In conclusion, this movie is good. I’d rate it a 9/10. To me, this was more of an experience than a movie. Do experience it. This review was hard to write and this isn’t up to my typical critical review - words just can’t flow (yes, I have plenty of criticisms too, but I’ll let it slide). Just experience it.

Addendum Links:

• Read Sebastian’s review of Cloverfield. He gives a more academic insight into cinema verite, confusion et al (I’d prefer it to be longer, since it reads like an academic paper rather than an op ed)
• And here’s Edmund’s review of Cloverfield. He gives his thought about it too.

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