The great screening took place last night at my apartment, with a select group of discreet individuals whose cinematic opinions are valued and rated among the highest in the world. Their feedback will be going toward changing the film from a caramel lump into a sculpture of sugary delight. Which, if you haven’t guessed by now, implies the film isn’t perfect as is. Crazy. I know you thought it was pretty near it, given the hype and hoopla surrounding it. I admit I built it up pretty significantly. But it’s still caramel. Which is sweet and tasty and has all kinds of things going for it. But that said…
…Lemme ‘splain. This was an audience of Americans. English speakers. And the cut is so rough you could easily stab someone in the stomach with it and it would hurt. A lot.
Because it’s rough, y’see…
Anyway, there were certainly some universal technical issues that naturally abounded and contributed toward a sense of distance from the viewing experience. Though explained prior to viewing that such issues existed, not having the benefit of knowing exactly what those issues were, where they existed in the timeline, and how we intended to correct them, made some confusion mount. Then there’s the matter of consistency that threw some out of the story: consistency of performance, of lighting, of camerawork, etc. For others, the talkie nature of the film (inherently non-American in its approach) was its major weakness.
Finally, there’s simply cultural issues at play within the film that simply do not translate to Americans, and would not without some kind of explanative prologue or other hackneyed device. Not likely to happen. But simply put, this is a film that seems to appeal more to a foreign, and especially an Ethiopian audience. I knew that going in. Hopefully, with corrections for the things we can change, and a knowledge that we can’t inform every heart of our intentions, we simply need to focus our attentions on the primary audience, and hope that any other people (ie, Americans) will appreciate the romance angle.
There are other issues that I’ve left unspoken or sparse in detail simple for space and time savings, but the next few days will see me hard at work to spin and weave a new edit that will hopefully address the issues at conflict. And we’ll go from there. As one of the characters says in the film, “What God intends will be.”