Imagine if you will a small Aberdonian boy looking through the newspaper to discover that a movie is being shown that was worked on by “Crow House Productions” a small upcoming film production company that has been giving experience to local filmmaker, producers, writers and every other job imaginable. So I woke up early took a cup of coffee, eyes still crusted over and I walked through the doors found my seat and watched the advanced screening in an almost empty theatre
The film Abrahadabra is a film the focuses on childhood and the loss of innocence through the loss of a loved one. Jane Cavalieri lives in the French countryside with her grandfather and father but after her father dies in a terrorist attack she retreats into herself and becomes filled with sadness which eventually subsides once she accepts that all of us will die. The film is filmed through an iPad as though she is recording videos for her father that tragically he will never see. All in all an emotional story. Or at least it would be if the movie was any good.
This movie is not a movie, it is over an hour of unrelenting nothingness. The film has has nothing of worth. It’s acting is emotionless and tepid as the grandad seems to have walked of the set of the local pantomime, spending the movie yelling at a distance over a field or being watched by the camera as he potters about a farm. He does not interact in any loving way toward his granddaughter so I do not believe that he cares for her or even that they even know each other. The lead actress is very beautiful but tragically she is also French, so we get to watch her stare blankly into the distance with all the emotion of a baguette. There is a scene of her just sitting whilst being photographed by a photographer but she just sits there whilst her grandfather watches. It contributes nothing and both actors are so dull in there expressions that it was frankly pointless. For some bizarre reason there is a character played by a balding, 30 year old hipster that is seen hanging out with the 14 year old girl in numerous scenes. In the end it is implied he isn’t an imaginary friend, so the scenes of her confiding in him cause a guttural reaction as they come off as flirtatious and vaguely sexual. This is the most emotional relationship in the movie and as it is between a 14 year old and a guy in his late twenties (told you it was french) this is highly uncomfortable and comes off as extremely creepy.
Now let’s talk about the gimmick of the film. First of all it’s a gimmick that is pointless, I filmed a short on an iPad once. Why? because I had no other option. This movie thinks filming on an iPad makes a movie more personal, which it could if it replaced everything in the story with anything that makes me care for the characters or the story. Watching them look at a sunset or making a cake in total silence and with the complete emotional void that falsely think their an actress.
The movie is filled with seemingly never ending shots, but they are used incorrectly. The long shot is great for immersing you into a situation or causing a feeling of dread when the shot lingers on an image. This movie however sets up limits not shots in which nothing of interest happens at all. The dad gets into a car, he leaves, his family watch, they go inside but it still doesn’t cut instead stretching the shot out to such an extent I feel my life getting shorter as a result of the time I wasted in the cinema. the movie says nothing, accomplishes nothing, achieves nothing and over all I can only imagine exists so the director can have feature film on his CV.
1/5
