"15 Minute Tape" has a 20-minute running time. "15 Minute Tape" will evoke an hour of discussion if you see it with a friend. That is, if you can sit through it. It's an amazing film. And it's one of the toughest films I have ever had to watch. If I had not met the filmmaker, Mike Tarnower from Dallas, I might have walked out after the first 6 or 7 minutes of this film.

I don't normally like to talk about a film's plot, but I have to in order to discuss this film. There are major spoilers here, so forgive me...

The film begins with a couple using their new camcorder for the first time. This is what gets us into the film: It's realism. They actors in the piece, Jeanette Chivvis and Robert McCollum, play out the young marrieds with such verisimilitude, you are easily drawn into the story. Chivvis has a natural charm and we really like the chemistry the duo creates.

Then Tarnower takes the film into sickening and all too cinematically familiar territory. Alone in the house, with the camcorder sort of left accidentally on and recording, the wife answers the door and a man forces his way into the house while she is home alone. He rapes and kills her as the camcorder records the event. This is film in a grisly and horrible way. It's realistic and shocking. It's horrid.

I would have walked out at this point if I had not met Tarnower. He had told me the film would be graphic. This part of the film is brutal, cruel, violent and disturbing.

Tarnower may not break any new ground in the way he shoots this film. In fact, it may have even been done before in a similar way. But Tarnower somehow makes it his own. I mean that in a positive way. He simply utilizes the technique to tell his story. I know it works because I saw it work. "15 Minute Tape" is so distasteful that it simply offends. Numerous people, including my two companions, one of who enjoys violent movies somewhat, walked out during this sequence. It's that harsh.

But here is what happens to make the film a mind-blowing masterpiece: Tarnower ends the film, after the rape/murder, with a "bloopers reel" that goes on as long as the film itself. We are shown everything, the make up girl getting Chivvis bloodied for the scene, the raw meat that was stabbed to make the stabbing sounds during the murder, actual outtakes and bloopers and much much more. The actors even joke about how gory the "used" meat looks. It goes on forever. And, in a way, it's just as disturbing as the actual piece. Of course, the actors joke around after the filming. They have to in order to release all the tension from the dramatic shoot they've just endured. But watching them clown around after what we have seen seems immoral, tainted and wrong.

And herein lies Tarnower's message. The film, due to this, becomes a commentary on film violence itself. Tarnower makes a stinging and biting commentary on how violence in the media and in the movies infiltrates our daily lives. And how it is not even taken seriously anymore. My male companions (who left) were deeply disturbed by the film. One mentioned how it made him think of something like that happening to his girlfriend and that upset him greatly. I myself could only watch in disgust and think about how this sort of thing happens in real life and how I don't want to think about it. And yet violence permeates our every moment in modern society. It is everywhere. "15 Minute Tape" shows us a grisly, unrelenting, brutal and vulgar/rape murder with an unflinching eye. And then it points a shameful finger at the audience who remained to watch it by reminding them it was all a farce, and forcing them to ask themselves why they watched - It was only a movie. We knew it wasn't real. Why did we watch? Why did it disgust us? Why did people leave? Why did people stay? Why did Tarnower make this film?

During the screening in competition at No Dance, two teenage boys walked in during the rape/murder segment. This made me angry and upset. I found this film pornographic in its violence. It shocked me. It frightened me. My biggest fear was that the boys would think it was "cool."

At one point during the brutal scene I thought perhaps Tarnower's film was a sociological experiment where violence would just continue and continue until somebody finally broken down and screamed out, "Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop." I was close to taking this action myself.

But then the outtakes come. And we are forced to sit and watch and evaluate what we have seen. Tarnower makes us think. It is sly, cunning, clever and it takes the wind right out of you. Perhaps Tarnower allows these "outtakes" to go on much too long. But perhaps that is his point. You watched the disgusting violence, now watch all that we went through to bring it to you. And now ask yourself: Why do filmmakers go to this much trouble everyday to bring this unmitigated pornography to the public? Is it because there is an audience for it? Is it because, in the end, violence is big business, especially in Hollywood?

"15 Minute Tape" is a weird and mind-altering film. It makes you think. It upsets you. After viewing it, I found myself saddened and a bit shaky. I wasn't sure about anything any more.

Look, this is the greatest thing I can say about the film: One of my friends who saw it, who has aspirations to be a filmmaker, who idolizes Tarantino and Rodriguez and Scorsese, totally reevaluated his opinion on violence in films after viewing it. And he didn't even watch the entire film.

My friends and I discussed this 20-minute film for at least an hour that night after the viewing. It made us think. It made us talk.

That, my friends, is a great film. And I'm glad I forced myself to watch it.

Now. I never want to see it - or anything like it - Ever... again.

Note:

Chivvis' real-life husband, David, plays the rapist/murderer.

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