After you watch enough independent, low-budget, and semi-amateur films, you really do come to appreciate the value of a good sound crew.
I mean, seriously, film audiences often take clear sound for granted. They make the mistake of assuming that it’s easy to clearly capture all of the dialogue or to recreate the sound of a gunshot or an explosion. It’s only when you see a film that doesn’t feature a clear soundtrack that you start to appreciate just how much you take for granted.
Take the 2012 film, Seventy Times Seven. Now, in the film’s defense, the dialogue is clear in every scene. You can hear when people are talking and you can understand the words that are coming out of their mouth. Still, this film features a lot of scenes that were shot outdoors. Some scenes were shot noticeably close to a highway. You can hear every bird chirping, every car driving by, every insect buzzing nearby, and every gust of wind that hits the microphone. On the one hand, one could argue that the film is capturing the authentic sounds of reality. On the other hand, it does get to a bit distracting.
The film is all about the importance of forgiveness, which is something that I happen to feel pretty strongly about. I think most of the problems in the world are due to the fact that people have not only forgotten how to forgive but also they’ve forgotten why it was important to forgive in the first place. So, I can’t complain about the film’s message. The execution, on the other hand….
David Anderson (Josiah David Warren) appears to have it all. He’s got a nice house. He’s got a nice ranch. He’s got a beautiful new wife, Jacqueline (Tina Ballerina). And Jacqueline’s pregnant! David, who hopes to eventually become a father to seven children, is excited! (It’s easy to say you want seven children when you’re not the one who has to actually give birth to them.) Everyone’s excited, except for David’s sister-in-law Jenny (Erica Lloyd) and David’s somewhat sketchy best friend, Brayden (Timothy McGrath). Jenny is upset because she’s been unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant for over a year. Brayden is upset because he used to date Jacqueline and he’s never really gotten over her.
One day, David comes home to discover that someone has broken into the house and murdered Jacqueline! Convinced that the police don’t know what they’re doing (and this film does take place in Denver so it’s totally possible that David is right about this), David becomes determined to track down the murderer and get his own revenge. Even though Jacqueline once touched his heart with a story about how she forgave a man who once mugged her, David is convinced that the time for forgiveness is over.
So, who could the murderer be? Is it Jenny, who is just upset because she desperately wants to have a child of her own? Or is it Brayden, who spends his time smirking and talking about how he doesn’t believe in any of that God stuff. Jenny is the one who is eventually arrested but, from the moment Brayden refuses to take part in a prayer circle, we pretty much know who the guilty party is.
As I said, the film’s execution leaves a lot to be desired. The performances are stiff, the film is full of slow spots, and the dialogue is often awkwardly didactic. It’s the type of film where someone notices that David’s father still looks young and healthy and someone else earnestly responds, “He looks that young because of God.” It doesn’t help that the film makes Brayden’s guilt so obvious that it actually diminishes David as a character when David doesn’t automatically figure that Brayden killed his wife. Brayden might as well be wearing a scarlet M on his chest.
That said, the film’s overall message isn’t bad. Embrace forgiveness and refuse to allow hate to dominate your life. We should all give that a try.
Through the Shattered Lens 