Digital Filmmaking and the subjective point of view

Two films at AFI FEST explore the world in unusual and original ways especially in regards to the use of a subjective point of view and image framing which heightens the intensity of a story in most unusual ways.

The films are: AFTERCHOOL from the US directed by Antonio Campos and INVOLUNTARY from Sweden and directed by Ruben Ostlund.

What’s most interesting and most similar about these two films made in the same year but from radically different cultures is this: they both use new media sources to tell their stories. In AFTERSCHOOL, the kids are drawn to You-Tube and pornography online like moths to a flame. Their lives become so enmeshed in the world of video that two characters end up getting their death captured on video camera. In INVOLUNTARY two young girls make themselves the dangerous object of desire by posing and vamping for their web cams. Besides the webcams, this stilted, unprofessional framing is the defining aesthetic of the film. This device carries thought the Swedish film most memorably in claustrophobic scenes capturing the human drama boiling over on a cross-country bus line, and in the film’s opening moment with its distant and unwavering framing heightens a startling small scale terror.

A teenage rites-of-passage drama, AFTERSCHOOL vividly captures the corrosive omnipresence of web video footage for American teens. From violent You Tube-style clips to Internet pornography, our new media is creating a tangled web of confusion for the young people going through puberty. Among them is the skinny, socially awkward sophomore Robert (Ezra Miller), who already has developed a taste for rough porn. As two girls suffer fatal drug overdoses on campus, Robert inadvertently captures the tragedy with his video camera. When his video begins circulating, the atmosphere of paranoia and unease on campus grows, and he becomes increasingly troubled and withdrawn. But AFTERSCHOOL scratches gently at this phenomenon, rather than pushing to excess. Just 24, Campos demonstrates his skill at weaving together a variety of themes and concerns: the alienated angst of voyeurism, the pervasive influence of media violence, and the empowering nature of the web cam

I loved this director’s previous effort BUY IT NOW about the real life attempt of a young girl to sell her virginity on eBay. And this latest effort is winning raves from its recent showcase at the NYFF.


And these raves are also being received from the other film, INVOLUNTARY.

It’s almost summer in Sweden. Throughout the city, people are engaging in minor indiscretions and misbehavior. Leffe likes to show off for his friends and play salacious pranks, especially when he’s drinking. A righteous grade-school teacher doesn’t know where to draw the line: she insists her fellow educators need a bit of instruction. And two young teenage girls who like to party and pose for sexy photos go a few steps too far. Inflected with an edgy, urban realism and dark, laconic wit, INVOLUNTARY offers an astute meditation on the intermingling of humans in our modern world. It's innovative in form, defiantly deeper in tone than a mere series of comic vignettes, and beautifully enacted by its ensemble cast. Director Ruben Ostlund writes about the germ of the idea behind the stories: “I played a computer game. The aim was to build and maintain a city. It was played from a bird’s eye perspective, with humans represented by small dots. One press of the icon resulted in pandemonium amongst the inhabitants. I felt that through the emotional distance, I was able to observe in an interested yet distanced manner, without judging and without any feelings of discomfort.” Ostlund replicates this effect, with astonishing success, with INVOLUNTARY.

It’s this distancing in our modern society that both of these filmmakers are clearly interested in exploring. And they do so in tremendously successful ways with these two cinematic endeavors.