Merry Anniversary

Rocket Boy have been around the competition for years now, and their distinct style of storytelling can sometimes hit and sometimes miss.

Merry Anniversary is a dark and mysterious film, with some great ideas at its core - I think a jilted lover revenge film is a great angle for Anniversary. I also quite liked the use of sign being sign language, though it would have been better if sign langue was already a bigger part of the film.

The boy writing his note at the start got some chuckles from the audience, though I'm not sure if these comedic moments were intentional, and if they were, I think the film is a bit tonally confusing, not sure if it wants to be a hard drama or a black comedy.

There are a few technical and editing foibles here too - the boy promises to be home before dark when we can already see it's dark outside, and the mum checks her phone while two separate characters are heard having a phone call, which made pretty much everyone who has watched this film confused, thinking the mum was one of the participants in the call.

I think I would have liked to explore the innerworkings of all of these implications a bit more (having the end of the film be the middle is a more exciting idea here), and on the flip side I think some stuff was drawn attention to and explained, when if it hadn't been brought up, I wouldn't have thought to question it, like how the girlfriend's friend remarks that the boy hasn't been in maths class for a while. Surely if he's missing school and his worried mother hasn't seen him in a month, then this would be a harder secret to hide?

Overall, a good idea, and some effective performances from the actors. There was just also a bit of a laundry list of small hiccups which hold this film back.

Challenge for next year: Keep doing your thing, maybe look into practicing all the various filmmaking jobs before the weekend - get accustomed with editing and camerawork, make films outside of the competition.