Thursday, 19 September 2013

The Lift

'THE LIFT'

The review of The Lift that I read was posted on this website:

http://gorillafilmmagazine.com/2011/08/07/lift/

Marc Isaacs is a BAFTA Award winning short film Director from North London. He has made several different short documentary films and has been included and celebrated in many other documentaries and articles. In 2008, he received a doctorate and has been a guest tutor at the London Film School. His latest film, Outside the Court, is very similar to The Lift, only this time, he stands with a camera, outside of the Highbury and Magistrates' Court in London, talking to people who enter in and out.

LIFT REVIEW


The Lift is a very odd film. It’s not particularly exciting, nor is it particularly interesting, but then again, it may just be the most interesting short film ever made.

The short documentary film is centres around a lift, or an elevator in a block of flats. We see the residents of the flat come and go with their daily routines aware of the fact that there is a man standing in the lift with them, holding a camera and capturing their every move.

The residents are all equally interesting people, although it does not look like it. For the first half of the short film, we just see the residents get in and out of the lift, having just come home from the days events. Nothing captivating or interesting happens, nobody even utters a word. But eventually, the director, Marc Isaacs begins asking simple questions to each and every one such as; ‘How was your day?’ and ‘What was your favourite childhood memory?’, it is then at this point where we begin to connect and sympathise for the people, who then become characters with distinct personalities. Some of them are very humorous, and the others are just quite depressing.

The great thing about Marc Isaacs work and most importantly, this film, is that he doesn’t want to show us things of great importance, for example; Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine questions gun laws in America and ‘who should get the rights to own a firearm?’, a very important issue indeed, but not something can take a moral interest in.

Now, The Lift is something much better, because, not only is it just about regular people with regular lives, it can be watched by regular people with regular lives, and people would feel a connection, whereas in Bowling for Columbine, I highly doubt any viewer would feel a moral connection with Michael Moore, or any of those gun wielding Americans.

Overall, a very good short film, and something that a lot of people could take a great interest in.

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