Summerhood (Jacob Medjuck, 2008): Canada

This went into being one of my favorite films of the film festival. Summerhood directed by Jacob Medjuck had all the right elements of being an excellent film. The cast of Summerhoodwere 90% of child actors that created the love hate relationship of camp as a child. The voice over or narration was uncredited by John Cusack, the reason behind that was because his name was like a brand and he knew that the film couldn’t afford him. What John Cusack decided to do the narration but to be uncredited for it, that way Jacob Medjuck would have to pay him loads of money for the job. Which was really cool of John Cusack to do and his voice really fit the film’s late 1980’s persona.

The music was a key element for the film because of the time frame of the late 1980’s hits that everyone loves including The Cure’s, “Boys don’t cry”. This film explores the subject of male adolescents and the interaction of girl adolescents that makes the film a laugh out loud comedy,drama, and romance. The form was created within a five day span and the opening patterns of the broadcast classical song that started the opened scene of each morning.

The repetition of pranks played by the boys created immaturity as well as private goals to become a legend of camp. Gender and sexuality are two of the main points in this film. The costumes were very original, smart, and hilarious such as The Raincoat Kid (Bailey Maughan) whom always wore a raincoat, huge sunglasses, and yellow rubber gloves. Mitch(Mason Young) as known as Casper, was a product of germ-a-phobic parents that enforced that he would wear only white clothes, which he wrapped himself consistently like a mummy. The insanity behind the white clothes was so the parents would be able to see the germs easier. The lighting was done with warm sunny tones and moon light creating the summer days and nights. The cinematographer, James Liston balanced both elements wonderfully.

The editing done by Jacob Medjuck, Tony Dean Smith, and David Willinsky create a fun atmosphere done with using props and graphic match images. Shot-reverse-shot was used to establish shots for each scene. The baseball scene is a perfect example for all of the above. The props consisted of sweaters and baseballs on sticks for close ups for the effect of the characters actually being there, in reality it was the magic of editing involved.

The director in the Q&A was just as funny and down to earth as expected. The whole experience of the film and the Q&A was so colorful that I had to see two showings of the film, Summerhood.