I had the misfortune of watching this "film" at the 2017 New Hampshire Film Festival. It was without question the worst attempt at film making I have ever had the misfortune of sitting through. An accurate description for this movie is a pile of hot garbage baking in the sun and quite honestly I would rather have watched a pile of hot garbage for an hour and a half. The brief description of the movie is the entire plot. Literally there is no more plot to the movie than given in the description. Swedish girl goes to island with guy and things get weird and that's it. There is no more development of the story than that. I honestly can't even see how there was a script written for this movie as scene after scene just happen seemingly with no rhyme or reason and with almost no connection those before and after it. There was a reason at the festival that no one stayed around for the Q and A after the movie and person after person jokingly asked for that hour and a half of their life back. Literally pick any other movie on planet earth and watch that instead of this.
2 Reviews
A Beguiling Atmosphere With Little Pay-Off
Marc_Horrickan1 October 2018
Warning: Spoilers
I had never come across Matthew Lessner prior to this popping up on MUBI. Initially, I was put off by the intro he wrote for that service and the all-too-obvious 1970s cult cinema feel to the film's opening 10 minutes. Was this about to be a trawl through hipster affectation and rip-off as homage? I was therefore presently surprised to see just how oddly AUTOMATIC AT SEA developed.
Ostensibly the account of a young Swedish ingenue called Eve (Livia Hiselius) who falls in with a wealthy young American called Peter (producer, David Henry Gerson), who whisks her away to his private New England holiday home for a small gathering of friends, the film morphs into a psychological thriller, then a creepy supernatural horror and finally a trippy revenge movie. Perhaps, Lessner's most impressive trick is to shoot the whole thing in the sun-kissed summer months around Martha's Vineyard. This mutes the darker elements of the film and makes the most mundane of moments queasily threatening and filled with portent. The curious triangular relationship that emerges between Grace (Breeda Wool), Peter and Eve, mixed with the arcane references to high art and classical European culture, feel cribbed straight from a literary work like John Fowles' THE MAGUS. In essence the film is about confronting totemic fears and neuroses, breaking down the id and freeing yourself from that which has bound and constricted your life thus far. It is Eve's closeted character that is ultimately teased out and liberated by the often sinister interactions of Peter and Grace. Another touchstone work would be something like Bergman's masterpiece THE HOUR OF THE WOLF, and although Lessner's film is not in that league, it is still an arresting and atmospheric work, even if it drifts off into complacent circularity at the end.
Definitely worth 90 minutes of your time and absolutely undeserving of the rather ridiculous review from the 15th October.
Ostensibly the account of a young Swedish ingenue called Eve (Livia Hiselius) who falls in with a wealthy young American called Peter (producer, David Henry Gerson), who whisks her away to his private New England holiday home for a small gathering of friends, the film morphs into a psychological thriller, then a creepy supernatural horror and finally a trippy revenge movie. Perhaps, Lessner's most impressive trick is to shoot the whole thing in the sun-kissed summer months around Martha's Vineyard. This mutes the darker elements of the film and makes the most mundane of moments queasily threatening and filled with portent. The curious triangular relationship that emerges between Grace (Breeda Wool), Peter and Eve, mixed with the arcane references to high art and classical European culture, feel cribbed straight from a literary work like John Fowles' THE MAGUS. In essence the film is about confronting totemic fears and neuroses, breaking down the id and freeing yourself from that which has bound and constricted your life thus far. It is Eve's closeted character that is ultimately teased out and liberated by the often sinister interactions of Peter and Grace. Another touchstone work would be something like Bergman's masterpiece THE HOUR OF THE WOLF, and although Lessner's film is not in that league, it is still an arresting and atmospheric work, even if it drifts off into complacent circularity at the end.
Definitely worth 90 minutes of your time and absolutely undeserving of the rather ridiculous review from the 15th October.
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