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Director Boneshin's
controversial short independent film definitely has a sense of
foreboding dread along with elements within its time frame that point to
a sharp sense of grim foretelling of events, including a prologue
involving our main character and her potential victim at a restaurant
one night. While the movie is based on real events of a young girl who
murdered her nine year old neighbor just to "see what it felt like," the
movie lacks a really solid and coherent narrative that could bond it as
a really thick thriller demonstrating the aimlessness of modern youth.
Director Boneshin wants to depict these events and the aftermath as
something of an artistic and spiritual experience zeroing in on extended
scenes of the film's characters sitting in dark corners going over their
crime and suffering for what they've done, while also cutting to
"candid" shots of the characters (including the young neighbor)
venturing out and exploring before the actual crime.
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This all
feels like padding to shield the apparent fact that the
short film has no real narrative to explore and nothing
really relevant to add to the concern of the desensitizing
of today's youth. So we're instead reduced to endlessly
random montages of gritty shaky cam where the characters
walk side by side, engage in acts of self-mutilation, and
inevitably the result of their acts which point to obvious
mental distress and guilt, with none of the impact we should
feel since we never really get to know the characters here.
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It feels as if
director Boneshin is relying on us knowing the actual events and using
that knowledge as a trick to connect us to the characters here, but it
sadly doesn't work. "The Columbine Effect" is a sharply directed movie
and one with gritty and grim flourishes and shadows, but in the end it's
a pretty confusing and dizzying spectacle with not a lot to say about
this senseless crime and the shock of its absolute randomness in the
end. To be honest I'm still not entirely sure what Columbine has to do
with it, but with such a volatile title, and gruesome trailer it will
spark some interest when it hits the festival circuit.
In the end, "The
Columbine Effect" is not a complete wash out with some definite eye for
detail and grit, but it doesn't really have any coherent story or point
to make about society and today's youth, and for that it feels like a
wasted opportunity to really explore such a horrible crime.
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