The Souvenirs
of Mr. X (*1/2)
review by Jon
Waterman
Director Arash T. Riahi finds and purchases a trunk full of
Super-8 movies made by an unknown, uncredited filmmaker somewhere
in his home country of Austria. Riahi decides that these amateur
efforts need to be discussed with the man who made them. So,
he goes out into the city on a hunt for Mr. X. On his journey,
he runs across a community of old, amateur filmmakers, which
he hopes will lead him closer to finding the mysterious man
behind the celluloid.
The film starts off very strong. It has a nice premise of
trying to locate this guy who made all these home movies and
essentially make him out to be someone important. But, once
he reaches the amateur filmmaking club, it becomes about telling
their stories, rather than hunting for his own. There are very
long stretches where Mr. X isn’t mentioned at all and
it seems as if that was never really the point of the film.
That would be fine if the title and opening fifteen minutes
didn’t mislead the audience into thinking the film was
about something its not. The whole main thread gets wrapped
up too quickly at the end and left me disappointed.
The majority of the movie is spent following one specific
filmmaker around, discussing film and showing his efforts at
the Austrian national competitions. He is the main focus, especially
after suffering the stroke. I wouldn’t have minded seeing
the film be just about this group of seasoned amateurs. They
can easily be a feature by themselves. The Mr. X story deserves
nothing more than a short and to not be included here. It just
ends up cheapening the rest of the movie. Because of this “side
story”, Riahi glances over some fun characters. I’d
say he spends too much time with the ones he does include.
The sense of community was lacking and would have been great
to see explored.
Riahi’s technique is good. He incorporates the Super-8
footage into the film. At some points it is used as a replacement
and a contemporary audio track compliments the chosen visuals.
Other times, it furthers the story or adds structure to the
piece as a whole. Filmmaking is integral here. There is no
attempt made to hide the equipment (such as the boom microphone
or a second camera or the director – who stays behind
the lens for the most part). It captures the curiosity and
the learning aspect of movie making and of the club. I don’t
think it fully represents the love of film. We understand it’s
a passion for one or two of the people, but as a whole, it
is not inspiring nor does it properly convey the emotions that
these people have deep inside.
The movie isn’t all that bad. The music is fantastic.
It’s somewhat charming and occasionally funny. Overall,
though, it lacks a definitive focus and shouldn’t have
pretended to be this other movie. I’m sure those guys
at the film club will tell him the same thing so his future
movies come out better.
respond to jon@filmbrats.com
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