{"id":5583,"date":"2009-11-04T11:43:49","date_gmt":"2009-11-04T19:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=5583"},"modified":"2009-11-04T11:44:19","modified_gmt":"2009-11-04T19:44:19","slug":"the-anchorage-anders-edstrom-and-c-w-winters-2009-swedenusa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=5583","title":{"rendered":"The Anchorage (Anders Edstrom and C.W. Winters, 2009): Sweden\/USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Lava Farmer<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed at Grauman’s Egyptian Theater, Hollywood. \u00a0As part of the 2009 AFI Film Festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"This slow paced story, The Anchorage<\/a><\/em>, seems to be anything but a story, following a simple woman with a simple life.\u00a0 Instead we are presented with beautiful shots of the Stockholm Archipelago in Sweden. Rather than being introduced to the characters, you seem to be watching them as though from a strangers perspective. \u00a0\u00a0You are forced to watch their monotonous everyday activities in real time without any explanation.\u00a0 Most of the takes are extremely long making some scenes seems so drawn out and dull that it\u2019s somewhat frustrating.<\/p>\n

They distance the audience from the characters with sound by making ambient noise more important than conversation or dialogue.\u00a0 The audience is constantly bombarded with the sounds of nature.\u00a0 The whistling wind, the splashing waves of the sea, the sound of a fire crackling, are paralleled by much harsher sounds of man and technology.\u00a0 When we hear the roar of a chainsaw or her boats engine, it is abrasive and harsh compared to the soothing sounds of her island.\u00a0 The director, C.W. Winter, said that the story is meant to be maintained by sound and not picture.\u00a0 You are always just within earshot of what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

Although we follow Ulla, the lady of the island, through her day-to-day tasks, we aren\u2019t really learning her story.\u00a0 At some point a hunter arrives on her island and you feel as though something might happen.\u00a0 You begin to feel fear for her.\u00a0 It\u2019s as though by distancing the us from Ulla it makes us want to understand her more.\u00a0 You are always trying to figure out what she thinking and why.\u00a0 You make of her what you want.<\/p>\n

The directors, Anders Edstrom and C.W. Winter, said that they weren\u2019t trying to illustrate a story from a script, but to instead write a story using the camera.\u00a0 Edstrom, primarily a photographer, decided to choose the weakest shots from each take so that the viewer would actively watch the film rather than letting everything come to them.\u00a0 They give us long drawn out shots then show them in repetition to make you notice small changes.\u00a0 Even though only a short time passed I began to feel very connected with Ulla and her simple way of life.\u00a0 It made me feel so grateful for the things that make life easy that seem to be taken granted for. \u00a0Perhaps we are supposed to walk away from the film with a new appreciation for life rather than a story.\u00a0 Not every film has to have a story, some just have a message.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Lava Farmer. \u00a0Viewed at Grauman’s Egyptian Theater, Hollywood. \u00a0As part of the 2009 AFI Film Festival. This slow paced story, The Anchorage, seems to be anything but a story, following a simple woman with a simple life.\u00a0 Instead we are presented with beautiful shots of the Stockholm Archipelago in Sweden. Rather than being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":736,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afi-filmfest-2009","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/736"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}