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★★★
Directed by: #KevinAnglin
Written by: Kevin Anglin #NatAnglin
Starring: #BrianRegal and Nat Anglin
The mockumentary Finding Filman was directed by Kevin Anglin and co-written by himself alongside Nat Anglin. The short follows Regis Filman, a softcore porn actor whose delusional dreams are to step up into the mainstream acting world. He drags everyone in his life into his fantasy and spends all his money and energy into this pipe dream no one believes in.
Anglin’s short is absurd. The characters are walking caricatures, especially Filman, a porn actor who insists that there is no penetration in his films and who is so absorbed in his own fantasy to realise how far-fetched it really is and how much of a joke people treat him. The documentary-style camera conveys this absurdity by having the camera pan to offscreen spaces in order to show the bass player and deconstruct the “magic of the movies”. Having said that... the film works! Both Nat Anglin and Kevin Anglin have stripped the film of any subtlety and created a tone that is quite enjoyable and fosters good laughs.
I mentioned before a bit about the characters, but it is interesting to note that although they are caricatures, they are also well-rounded. Moreover, there seems to be a certain transformation throughout the film at work with each of them. The secondary characters, even more so than Filman himself, experience some sort of change – the flatmate Jake, for example, goes from looking down on Filman to being on his side; and Alicia, the scriptwriter for the porn films, makes peace with her line of work and decides to make real change.
Dan Mercaldi’s cinematography is not exempt from the aforementioned transformation. In the beginning of the film the cinematography helps to heighten the absurdity of the film as well as creating and establishing a relationship between the audience and the film against Filman. By framing the other characters’ reactions to Filman and contrasting it to his endless positivity, the film invites the audience to laugh at Filman. Nevertheless, by the end of the film, Filman’s positivity seems to rub off on everyone else and both the characters and the camera now move to his side and function withhim.
Together with the unusual characters and the camerawork, the editing is also key in creating the humour in the film – the inserts that add little but key information to show how a character might be lying or ‘exaggerating the truth’. Further, these are also fundamental to establish the connection between film and audience.
Finding Filman feels like a collective effort that delivers laughs and maintains its humour throughout.
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