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Open Water is a film I have been meaning to watch for a while. It is potentially a perfect film for me, it has Indie roots, whilst being very creative and having mass appeal as a thriller. And in a lot of ways it is a very good film. It definitely shows what is possible with such a small budget. The film follows two holiday makers, who are trying to escape the busy world that they are used to, to spend some quality time together. The are enjoying the holiday, and make plans to go diving. And almost predicitably the dive ends up being devastating for the young couple. I don't know if it is just me, but I would like to see film makers delay the inevitable every now and again.
The film is a decent attempt at a feature on an indie budget, however the abilities of actors and the strictness of direction are often lost, due to the reduced budget and shorter shooting timescales. The script suffers as well. All that you need to do is watch the deleted scenes that they decided to include on the DVD and just imagine the stuff they didn't include! The style of filming is somewhere between the personal filmography of Cloverfield and (more recently) Paranormal Activity, and the feature length thriller Phone Booth. I think I would more favorably compare it to the later as the concept is at it's highest level very similar and the DOP had to be very creative to make shots interesting.
I think the thing I found difficult to grasp about this film was firstly the general incompitance of people. I am hoping that this was just a plot tool to move the story along, because there are some blindingly obvious things that go wrong that just shouldn't. These are uncharacteristicly of an indie film, chucked into the audiances face to make sure they are aware of them. Even the main characters, they seem so one dimentional, and only one or the other of them can be strong at any one time. I completely disagree with the ending as well, in fact the last 20 minutes of the film is a complete disaster. It's almost like they decided to give up.
I like to link these blogs back to something that is happening in my current life. They start out as a review of a film and end up recounting a small bit of my life to keep you intertained. But to be honest, there isn't much going on that I can actively link to this film. The only thing possibly is the TV program Inside Natures Giants, which I have been introduced to. I watched a couple from the previous season where they cut open an elephant and other large animals, but this season so far has been great. The first episode was a Great White Shark, and the latest episode is Snakes. I strongly suggest you watch them, as they are brilliant and very interesting.