For years Laura (Gaia Weiss) has been working as an actor in an immersive interactive role play experience (LARPing) where patrons get to participate in extended historical reenactments or fictional scenarios.
Her hard work and devotion as an actor has paid off, she's just been cast in an exciting new role in New York. Laura plans to move there from Europe after this last reenactment job is finished. Laura's dreams just might be on the verge of coming true until she learns she's pregnant to her casual boyfriend, and boss, Gregorio (Lorenzo Richelmy).
Feeling trapped and resentful, Laura must choose between the career that's just taking off, and having the family she never wanted out of a sense of duty. Feeling trapped, Laura is haunted by nightmares of her identity slipping away into her unborn baby.
But when the power unexpectedly goes out and a fixture almost injures some patrons the LARPing event is forced to end early. Now with all of the patrons gone, the staff are left to clean up; but are they really alone down there, and where has Gregorio disappeared to anyway?
Developed by Manuela Cacciamani and director Roberto Zazzara, The Bunker Game comprises a premise which has all the potential to tell a compelling tale filled with subtext and deeply engaging plot lines. Instead the audience is disappointed with 95 minutes of confused and incoherent visual ramblings.
If one looks closely there are the remnants of a once clear voice struggling to come through in this film. Unfortunately The Bunker Game suffers from too many extra voices attempting to pile on after the fact; which only crowd the plot and smother that once clear voice.
The visuals of the films photography are competent although somewhat basic and a little vague. There are no frames throughout which could be genuinely considered more than utilitarian, with minor attempts at the cliched shots of others. Framing and blocking are both unremarkable, with neither doing much to serve the story.
Dialogue is disingenuous, made worse by stuttered performances across the cast, particularly Yasmine (Amina Smail) whose unnatural pauses and explosions of undue aggression function only to build an invisible wall between the audience and the film. In truth if there was any chemistry between the cast it did not survive the editting process. Real people do not talk to each other the way this script calls for.
Weiss' performance is of the extent we have come to know for other models whom feeling long in the tooth suddenly decided they might like to extend their career by giving acting a go. They all seem interchangeable at this point, right down to their invariable nude scene.
From Laura's cousin Harry (Mark Ryder) who thinks he'd be the better love interest to Laura, to edgy gender confused Robin (Felice Jankell) and neo-nazi Andrej (Tudor Istodor), all of the characters are reprehensible. When everyone is the "bad guy" the audience is left pondering whom they were intended to relate with.
But for all the complexity and political ideology this film drips with, what is mysteriously missing from The Bunker Game is anything which might reasonably invoke fear. Even simple jump scares are absent. In it's place we receive copious amounts of somewhat aimless walking, with perhaps 70% of this film just people tediously walking around for seemingly no coherent reason.
Ultimately this film had potential, so one hopes those involved do try again after taking honest feedback on board and spending more time polishing a single idea without overwhelming it. Skip this one, but keep an eye out for what comes next from Roberto Zazzara and Manuela Cacciamani.
Her hard work and devotion as an actor has paid off, she's just been cast in an exciting new role in New York. Laura plans to move there from Europe after this last reenactment job is finished. Laura's dreams just might be on the verge of coming true until she learns she's pregnant to her casual boyfriend, and boss, Gregorio (Lorenzo Richelmy).
Feeling trapped and resentful, Laura must choose between the career that's just taking off, and having the family she never wanted out of a sense of duty. Feeling trapped, Laura is haunted by nightmares of her identity slipping away into her unborn baby.
But when the power unexpectedly goes out and a fixture almost injures some patrons the LARPing event is forced to end early. Now with all of the patrons gone, the staff are left to clean up; but are they really alone down there, and where has Gregorio disappeared to anyway?
Developed by Manuela Cacciamani and director Roberto Zazzara, The Bunker Game comprises a premise which has all the potential to tell a compelling tale filled with subtext and deeply engaging plot lines. Instead the audience is disappointed with 95 minutes of confused and incoherent visual ramblings.
If one looks closely there are the remnants of a once clear voice struggling to come through in this film. Unfortunately The Bunker Game suffers from too many extra voices attempting to pile on after the fact; which only crowd the plot and smother that once clear voice.
The visuals of the films photography are competent although somewhat basic and a little vague. There are no frames throughout which could be genuinely considered more than utilitarian, with minor attempts at the cliched shots of others. Framing and blocking are both unremarkable, with neither doing much to serve the story.
Dialogue is disingenuous, made worse by stuttered performances across the cast, particularly Yasmine (Amina Smail) whose unnatural pauses and explosions of undue aggression function only to build an invisible wall between the audience and the film. In truth if there was any chemistry between the cast it did not survive the editting process. Real people do not talk to each other the way this script calls for.
Weiss' performance is of the extent we have come to know for other models whom feeling long in the tooth suddenly decided they might like to extend their career by giving acting a go. They all seem interchangeable at this point, right down to their invariable nude scene.
From Laura's cousin Harry (Mark Ryder) who thinks he'd be the better love interest to Laura, to edgy gender confused Robin (Felice Jankell) and neo-nazi Andrej (Tudor Istodor), all of the characters are reprehensible. When everyone is the "bad guy" the audience is left pondering whom they were intended to relate with.
But for all the complexity and political ideology this film drips with, what is mysteriously missing from The Bunker Game is anything which might reasonably invoke fear. Even simple jump scares are absent. In it's place we receive copious amounts of somewhat aimless walking, with perhaps 70% of this film just people tediously walking around for seemingly no coherent reason.
Ultimately this film had potential, so one hopes those involved do try again after taking honest feedback on board and spending more time polishing a single idea without overwhelming it. Skip this one, but keep an eye out for what comes next from Roberto Zazzara and Manuela Cacciamani.