THE CHALKER

I love films with a trivial premise and this was really no exception! There was some hilariously captivating moments in here, an extremely convincing accent, and great attention to detail on camera work. I thought the pacing was a little slow in the middle and [spoiler] the twist was a bit abrupt in comparison, but that's easily forgivable with such an original (but valid!) take on the crime genre. Curious to see what this team comes up with next time!

AFM.

I brought it up earlier today that everyone who ever does 48 probably feels it's ok to get a free pass to do a black and white noir, or a mockumentary once in their competition existence. Tripell films take their mockumentary pass in 2024.

Talking heads? Check
Cut to interviewed characters that add to what the talking head is saying? Check.
Complete focus on wordplay to do with the one joke that the mockumentary is about? Check.

Look, you're clearly a really talented team. Dialogue was naturalistic, camerawork was clean and inside locations were even really well graded to bring a somber blue tone to proceedings to emphasise the seriousness of what our protagonist was driving home.

100% not my cup of tea, as the mockumentary was and is incredibly stale in 48. I think Auckland even made it clear 'no more!' as far back as 2011 so you get the idea.

But rather than ragging on mockumentaries, did you have a good, solid story that was asking a narrative question and engaged the audience? In my opinion you could have, if the talking head who was raising at times poignant points about carrying on tradition had actually then been backed up with something that made us empathize and care rather than just see them as someone sitting in a chair talking about police chalking.

In my opinion a missed opportunity by a really talented team.

Let me just say the idea of focusing the story on a crime-scene chalker was a novel one. I too like films that are based on something trivial. However, I have to echo much of steelpotato's thoughts here - mockumentaries are so tired in this competition and I feel I've seen a lot of them already this year, along with vloggers, Reality TV, influencer vids. of The Office clones. That said, as usual, you pays the entry fee you make what you wants!

"The Chalker" is well acted, shot and edited - all of the tech stuff is great. But nothing really happens. He tells his story interview style and the detectives argue the merit of his work. I feel all of this could have been done without the mockumentary style even if the whole film was based at that single crime scene and showed us the ensuing conflict between the Chalker and "real" police work. We don't really get to root for The Chalker because he's just not doing anything or overcoming anything.

Overall, a great spark of an idea that falls a bit flat.