Sitges 2010: CHATROOM Review
[Our thanks to Guillem Rosset for the following review.]
There was a time when Hideo Nakata revolutionized the horror genre with a long-haired spooky girl that crept out of a well. Thanks to The Ring, half the world discovered that there were other ways of dealing with the horror cinema besides Hollywood's way, and soon other Japanese films followed the trend. So as a long time fan of both horror and Asian movies, I was both expectant to see Chatroom, one of the latest works of Nakata, but also a little reluctant because honestly I wasn't very attracted by its premise.
Written by Enda Walsh (an adaptation of a stage play of her own), Chatroom revolves around five teens that use Internet as a way to escape from their real life problems, by the way of a chat room where they share their personal issues. One of them, William, a troubled teenager with a dark past, emerges as a sort of leader as he begins to play a twisted mental game with them, a virtual game that will ultimately bring them very real troubles.
One of my main concerns before watching the film was the way the "virtual world" would be portrayed, as I'm sick of movies which show some weird virtual reality-like spaces as a way of depicting the world wide web, so any likeliness to the real thing is merely anecdotal. But the way the movie presents us this chats came as a very pleasant surprise: the chat rooms are presented as real life rooms in some kind of huge hotel, where the online interactions of the characters are shown as physical interactions between them. And this is maybe one of the movie's main highlights. Nakata manages to recreate the online world with a very interesting visual look, without losing veracity in the process. For once, the viewers with at least some knowledge about the subject won't feel insulted.
But sadly, as I said, this may be one of the few virtues of the film. At times, the movie feels like some TV film about the dangers of the Internet, with the usual troubled teenager's stereotypes and a very basic psychology. It' very easy from the start to predict how things will end, so don't expect some kind of last minute plot twist or something. At least the actors are convincing enough and deliver solid performances, so it's not their fault. The film's definitively not an horror film, but more of a psychological thriller (sorry, no ghostly girls this time). The film being a British production filmed in London with a vast majority of the crew being westerners, there are no traces of the "Japanese horror flavor" to be found. Besides Nakata, it's also worth nothing the presence of Kenji Kawai as the film's composer, which is always interesting but not too memorable this time.
So, it's worth watching? Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad movie, it's just that it's not much great either. It can be an entertaining experience while it lasts, but it won't stay with you for much longer. And don't worry, this time you don't have to pass the video around to some friends to avoid the curse.
Review by Guillem Rosset
There was a time when Hideo Nakata revolutionized the horror genre with a long-haired spooky girl that crept out of a well. Thanks to The Ring, half the world discovered that there were other ways of dealing with the horror cinema besides Hollywood's way, and soon other Japanese films followed the trend. So as a long time fan of both horror and Asian movies, I was both expectant to see Chatroom, one of the latest works of Nakata, but also a little reluctant because honestly I wasn't very attracted by its premise.
Written by Enda Walsh (an adaptation of a stage play of her own), Chatroom revolves around five teens that use Internet as a way to escape from their real life problems, by the way of a chat room where they share their personal issues. One of them, William, a troubled teenager with a dark past, emerges as a sort of leader as he begins to play a twisted mental game with them, a virtual game that will ultimately bring them very real troubles.
One of my main concerns before watching the film was the way the "virtual world" would be portrayed, as I'm sick of movies which show some weird virtual reality-like spaces as a way of depicting the world wide web, so any likeliness to the real thing is merely anecdotal. But the way the movie presents us this chats came as a very pleasant surprise: the chat rooms are presented as real life rooms in some kind of huge hotel, where the online interactions of the characters are shown as physical interactions between them. And this is maybe one of the movie's main highlights. Nakata manages to recreate the online world with a very interesting visual look, without losing veracity in the process. For once, the viewers with at least some knowledge about the subject won't feel insulted.
But sadly, as I said, this may be one of the few virtues of the film. At times, the movie feels like some TV film about the dangers of the Internet, with the usual troubled teenager's stereotypes and a very basic psychology. It' very easy from the start to predict how things will end, so don't expect some kind of last minute plot twist or something. At least the actors are convincing enough and deliver solid performances, so it's not their fault. The film's definitively not an horror film, but more of a psychological thriller (sorry, no ghostly girls this time). The film being a British production filmed in London with a vast majority of the crew being westerners, there are no traces of the "Japanese horror flavor" to be found. Besides Nakata, it's also worth nothing the presence of Kenji Kawai as the film's composer, which is always interesting but not too memorable this time.
So, it's worth watching? Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad movie, it's just that it's not much great either. It can be an entertaining experience while it lasts, but it won't stay with you for much longer. And don't worry, this time you don't have to pass the video around to some friends to avoid the curse.
Review by Guillem Rosset
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