Tan and Javid are outlaws looking for the people responsible for their parents’ death. As their search gets weird, they realize they are part of a script written by a dentist in his spare time.
Written by Arend Remmers, also the name of the dentist in the film, and directed by Adolfo J. Kolmerer and William James, Snowflake is a cheeky take on the meta-film where the leads know they are in a story, but not exactly to what extent. The film takes its meta-ness and plays with it having a character named after its writer being the one writing the film itself. It’s one very circular in how it works, and it does work, it just takes a very long time and a few too many twists and turns before it gets to its conclusion. That being said, a lot of the twists and turns are entertaining, they simply feel like they are going nowhere and some of them feel as though they have been put into the film to pad the runtime. The story is fun, the twists are mostly interesting, but it all takes much too long and could have been better explored with less side stories and less time wasted. The film suffers from this as the viewer loses interest before things really pick up and get to the ending that makes sense for the film.
Playing the leads Tan and Javid are Erkan Acar and Reza Brojerdi who have a camaraderie that works well for the film. Their relationship on screen looks like they do know each other and are indeed close. They play these two guys who are on a mission to find who killed their parents and who are trust into a story that seems completely insane from the get-go as they find a script of their lives. Their performances sell the insanity of the concept and work toward making the film makes some sense. These are performances meant to entertain and not award winners in terms of depth or complexity, but this is what the film needs and this is what they gave. Playing the titular character of Snowflake or Schneeflöckchen in German is actress Judith Hoersch who gives a bit of a ray of sunshine in the craziness. She had a much needed light to their lives.
Snowflake is a film that is easily to lose track of what is going given all that is going on and all the twists and turns. This leads to easily getting lost if one does not pay attention 100% of the time. The twists and story elements are a few too many, which makes sense as the story in the film is written by a clueless dentist throwing all that he can at the page and hoping something sticks. This leads to a film where there is possibly too much going on and loses the attention of the viewer even though it is entertaining. The film is purposefully all over the map with some elements working and some not so much. It’s overly long, but it does have good sequences that would have worked better within a more organized film. It’s, as mentioned before, entertaining, but it has too much in it that is just there for the sake of being there creating a film that is odd to watch and feels a bit off.
Ithaca Fantastik Film Festival 2017 ran from November 3rd to 12th, 2017.