Volume 11, Number 26
19 Aprýl 2005





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"BEHIND THE SCENES"

Atii.jpg (5753 bytes)Hey, you all! After a refreshing spring break, we're back in college, probably counting down the days till the end of the spring semester. I hope you all had a great time during the past holiday, just like I did.
Since my break took place far away from here, and I wasn't able to see any new movies during that time, I'm going to talk about a disappointing film that I saw before the holiday. I need to warn you about this film, because it's still showing at cinemas across Turkey.
Although the movie brings together well-known actors and actresses, it can't seem to go beyond being an ordinary Hollywood production. At the beginning, I thought I'd be interested in the characters all the way to the end. However, it turned out to be a clichéd story, where you can easily guess what's going to happen next.
"Hide and Seek" is a new film from John Polson. The main roles are played by Robert De Niro, Famke Janssen, Dakota Fanning and Elisabeth Shue. Emily (Fanning) is a little girl who feels severely depressed after her mother's suicide. Her father David (De Niro) searches for ways to help her get over her grief. Finally, he decides to move to an ideal new home in the woods. This is a cliché setup for a horror film, because the house has lots of attics and basements and crannies and staircases. Moreover, the house is near a lake that is, according to local people, extremely quiet in the wintertime. What a coincidence that it's wintertime--quite enough to make you feel that something bad is going to happen.
Throughout the movie, you'll notice that there are many extra characters who seem to hang around a lot. For instance, the neighbors and the sheriff are always creating this atmosphere of anxiety and suspicion through their behavior. However, it's clear that there's either something wrong with Emily or something extraordinary going on.
For a certain period of time, the movie proceeds to convince the audience that Emily has something on her mind, since she draws what she feels and sees. Each time you wonder what she wants to tell us, but this goes on only for the first half. Unfortunately, in the middle of the second half, all the mystery turns into clear identification of who is who. From that moment on, you simply sit in your seat and wait for the movie to end. That's why "Hide and Seek" turns out to be almost two hours' worth of dissatisfaction.
Beyond the problems with the plot, the scenes where Dakota is drawing are really funny, because she's at least 10 years old, too big to be drawing matchstick men. The drawings were so stupid that the most appropriate thing would be to use them in one of the "Scary Movie" series as satire (if you know what I mean!).
All in all, "Hide and Seek" offers the audience very little satisfaction. There are various gaps in the story--the film is really just a bunch of inefficient scenes that have been put together.
See you around! Have fun and don't play hide and seek!

Rating:


Atilla Karakurum (IE/IV)

atilla_karakurum@yahoo.com

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