Lyrical and gentle, "cicadas" moves through the all too familiar terrain of a modern dysfuctional family managing to never step into the pitfalls of such a genre. While the primary focus of this film is a teenage girl trying to come to grips with life and love, the secondary characters of her brothers, one older and one younger, are also explored. This is one of the reasons why the film is called "cicadas," as a title card at the beginning explains that the word refers to a bug whose males produce a loud buzzing noise. The men in the protagonist's circle, generally, continue to be the source of her problems in that they are so busy making their own noise, they don't seem to be able to stop and notice that she too, though much more quiet and reserved, is suffering through just as much pain as they are.

Writer/Director Kat Candler manages to continually pull herself out of the corners the film seems to be painting itself into in new and refreshing ways. There's much joy, angst, sorrow, and happiness to be found within the confines of the film. And while the conclusion doesn't contain all the answers, it does leaves us with a feeling of hopefulness and sweetness.

Lindsay Broockman is a real find as lead teen girl Anna. Trying to fit into an educational, public school system that seems to be virtually ignorant of all that is happening with it, Anna seems to avoid most of the pratfalls of such existence by sticking to herself and remaining quiet. As we view the family life she exists within, with loving but absentee parents caught up in their own world, and siblings who could grate on anyone's nerves, we begin to come to like and appreciate Anna for her quiet emotional fortitude. However, we learn that she is pretty good at hiding her true feelings of hurt and anger. As teenagers once ourselves, we see the obvious problems which she has. We see now, as adults, that these are, mainly, trifles. But the film is told from the point of view of a teenager, and therefore, even the most piddling of problems seems paramount to them. This film contains much teen angst, but it isn't that overwrought, melodramatic teen angst we are used to getting in modern movies. Instead, and much to our delight, Candler opts for more realistic and more profound moments of upset.

The males in the piece are simply awesome. Brandon Howe as love interest James Fisher offers a troubled, quiet and romantic compliment to Broockman's Anna. Together, their chemical makeup of two teenagers trying to figure out how to relate to one and other, with confused feelings and troubling histories, becomes the sweet sorrow Shakespeare wrote about. As Candler slowly exposes James' wounds, we grow to care as deeply about him as we do for Anna. Meanwhile, Anna's brothers Simon (Bryan Chafin) and Jacob (Paul Conrad) also begin to gain our sympathy. Candler, in a move that is very astute, begins the film by making these characters seem oh- so-typical and then slowly exposes the unique and sympathetic characters that they truly are. By setting us up to expect the stereotypical worst and then delivering characters of true depth and pathos, we are drawn ever increasingly into the stories she weaves here. It's a lovely script.

While the acting in the film is, very occassionally, a bit stiff (generally from the adults), and the film's more emotional moments are allowed to go a bit over the top (again, usually on the part of the adults), the film has a continuous stream of quiet emotion that is alternately troubling and joyous, much like adolescence itself. Candler provides these youths with moments to experience pain, heartbreak, hurt, and fear but peppers these experiences with moments of intense joyousness, happiness, romance and pride allowing for a rich and full bodied experience of young life that viewers immediately recognize as truth.

"cicadas" is shot on DV but this new technology and lower budget does not hurt the film in any way because the story is what's important here; the medium by which it is told is not. The DV revolution continues to put the power of filmmaking in the hands of those most capable of telling truly unique and visionary stories: young people, the middle class and minorities (including women). Candler, with DP Jim Eastburn, creates a bucolic existence just on the edge of suburbia to give the film a tone of warmth and reality. These aren't inner-city kids with gang problems or suburban youth's infected by the power of the Internet to build guns and massacre their high school. Rather, these are the youth on the fringe of these modern headlines, living in a world stuck sorely in the middle of "old fashioned values" and modern woe. Left to their own devices by parents who work far too much and a school system that has no interest in them (except for the occasional good teacher), the protags of "cicadas" experience bullying and verbal jabs from unfeeling peers as the catalysts for their angst and hurt. The experience undergone by the young male character of the film, played wonderfully by Chafin, only serve to remind us of where these characters are coming from and what they must overcome in order to achieve a modicum of happiness. Mostly what they most overcome, of course, are their own feelings of inadequacy and their inabilities to express themselves without fear of societal retribution. Chafin's Simon has a problem that becomes very important to the film's tone and theme, yet it is a problem that only underscores the hurt and inner turmoil going on by all the young characters here. His lashing out, at the film's climax, becomes troubling because of how his anger and hate is expressed, not at the outside world, but rather within. It is poignant and heartbreaking stuff.

"cicadas" is a wonderful film. Kat Candler is a name you will hear much in the future; as you will often as you hear the names of Lindsay Broockman, Brandon Howe, and Bryan Chafin. If you want to see the best of local filmmaking, the apex of what Austin has to offer in the way of creativity, acting ability, and revolutionary DV filmmaking, then this is the film which now stands at the forefront of that movement.

Note:

The title is not capitalized.

Also with Stacy Hopcus, Evan Greenwalt, Cheryl White, Don Cass, Margaret Kaler, Kingsley Martin, Gaige Shepherd and Kim Smith.

Candler also serves as co-producer and editor of the film.

Score by Explosions in the Sky with additional music by Cinema West, Cream Abdul Babar, The Divided Body, Flanders, Frankenfinger, Jon Todd, Nel Aspinal and Shannon Wright.

Official website is http://cicadas.home.texas.net

Hopcus and Greenwalt appear together in a short called "Green" by Debbie Smith which is being shown at Cinematexas 2000.

More of Lodger's reviews indexed alphabetically! Just click your favorite letter to go there.

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

HOME

In Association with:

Posters From!

Get your Movies

Please Visit