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Friday 4 January 2013

Shaking Dreamland Review


Filmmakers are a dime a dozen these days. It seems like everyone and their mother wants to be a filmmaker and have that one film that launches their career into superstardom. This drive to succeed makes people watch all sorts of films, mostly the really good ones to understand how it all works. And there is tremendous benefit in that, along with film school for those interested, but sometimes watching bad movies can be just as beneficial as good movies. It happens all the time that people set out to make films and end up being very embarrassed by the first two or three films they make. What you learn from that experience can help you make a better film the next time. Sometimes you have to fail a few times before you can succeed. The same is true for watching movies as well, sometimes you have to watch a few bad films in order to recognize what a good movie is. You can't have one without the other and you probably shouldn't. With this in mind, I went into watching Shaking Dreamland.

It's a hard movie to watch, and not just because a problem with story and camera work. The subject matter is also really difficult. A film about a recently married man who discovers some dark things about his past and his family as he starts his own. What he discovers, which I won't spoil for anyone, would be hard for anyone to spend time watching. It's clear the filmmakers who made Shaking Dreamland aren't afraid to tackle tough issues, and that can be a good thing. Too often movies that come out these days tend to tread on old familiar territory, things like love, career, and crime.

None of these stories are present in Shaking Dreamland. They are touched on briefly here and there but the bulk of the story focuses on the more sensitive issues that are brought up. Whether they are dealt with well or not I will leave up to people who have actually experienced such things in their lives. That's not for me to say. But what I can say is that I learned something from watching this film, and that's never a bad thing. I hope that you can learn something from it too, whether you're a filmmaker or not.

You can find it at Amazon, Google Play and Youtube.

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