Cloverfield (2008)

Cloverfield. Film review. In a brief sentence, Cloverfield is what would you probably got when you decided to introduce Blair Witch Project to Godzilla. A professional amateur video that instead of documenting ghost sightings, documented the very night when a certain monster, codenamed "Cloverfield" invades New York.

A video tape was found amidst an un-shown site that used to be Central Park, New York. This video tape was a home-made tape initially used to document a farewell party to Robert Hawkins, who was about to leave for Japan. The contents of the video-tape spans the events that happened for about seven hours on Friday night - Saturday morning. Cloverfield is a film that in its entirety, played the contents of this video, (seemingly) played as is and unedited.

I heard some people complained about dizziness after they seen this film. For me, it was a great film. Probably the first film in 2008 that i really really liked. But, there's nothing wrong with the dizziness. The nature of the film is supposedly taken from a simple video-camera, and the one holding it was almost always on a run. Therefore, shaky pictures, not focus pictures, are expected. Dizziness, motion sicknesses are due to most. I even heard that someone actually puked in the theater. The approach felt like a documenter, and in my case, once things start happening, there's no slowing down. It grips me in its tension, and personally involve me on its scenes, on the ground-zero so to speak. And most importantly, it made me care about the characters. I want them to survive. I was gripping my armrest when danger approaches them, i even almost felt the adrenaline, the fear, the loss, and the fatigueness that the characters felt throughout the film. And that what made this film a great experience, and best enjoyed on large screens. The film effectively uses an approach that less is more. We never really see the monster save for glimpses and its destruction path except that there was a pretty clear close-up shot of the monster at the end of the film. It's a big and ugly thing. Further, probably the first in a long time, i hadn't really paid any mind to anyone in the theater. I don't really cared when a guy in two rows before me flashed his handphone, nor to a guy behind me who tried to explain things to his girl-friend. I was really absorbed into the experience to paid any heed to these distractions. And finally, for the first time in a long long time as well, i heard some applause when the film had ended. The film was certainly deserved it.

The film doesn't featured any recognizable big-stars. United 93 also uses this approach. And i was quite confident that the reasons behind the approach doesn't differ by much. The exclusion of any recognizable big-stars made the characters more believable as your everyday man and woman. Just like United 93, they had more genuinity than any big-stars could ever provide for these kind of films.

Cloverfiled is essentially, a monster film. But, i guarantee, as you went further into the film, you won't really care about the monster anymore. I don't care about whence the monster came, is it from outer space? I don't care. Is it from the deepest ocean? I don't care. Is it annihilated in the end? I don't care. Why New York? I don't know, and i don't care. You'd care more about Rob, Jason, Hud, Lily, Marlene and Beth as they tried to run to somewhere safe as the monster tore New York in pieces. It's their tale, and one of them had a camera rolling to shared their tale of survival, and of their quest and power of love, and of their last grasp to a strand of humanity.

My first great film in 2008. I caught the film on last Saturday's midnight show. If you're living in Jakarta, expect the film to screened on a daily schedule this Wednesday.