The Road To Love is an independent film from 2001 which explores homosexuality in the Middle East, but also the personal ramifications of coming out of the closet. A bold film, to be sure.
Or so I thought, that is.
I very much admired the film's ambitious message and statements, as open homosexuality is for some reason still a touchy subject after 12,000 years of civilization (you'd think that not caring who someone wanted to be with would be one of the first things we took care of as a species.)
At any rate, the film is...shall we say, less than satisfactory? A good message, yes, and one people need to hear, but it is overshadowed by some technical problems that severely hinder the film watching experience.
For instance, the entire film looks like it was shot by a very old home camera, and nothing is done to compensate for this. There isn't any lighting to speak of that would help the visuals except the sun, and even that just gets in the way sometimes.
Not that you'll spend a lot of time watching the screen. You'll be racing to read the subtitles at the bottom. There's nothing wrong with subtitles, and some of the best movies ever are in subtitles exclusively. The only issue here is, sometimes the subtitles flash across the screen for a moment, or aren't quite synced up with the audio.
While I could talk about the sound quality in the movie (or lack thereof,) I know that many of you might defend the movie, saying that the medium doesn't matter, but that the story told is what is important. Well, I'm sorry, but the story wasn't that interesting...it was nice to finally see a movie not afraid to show male nudity (is it more right to show female nudity? Hollywood thinks so.) and the information about the Siwa oasis was fascinating and informative, but moments after we hear about this fascinating area, we are thrust back into the predictable plot.
Maybe if it was actually a report about homosexuality in the Middle East (as the film claims) or about the Siwa oasis, but it was about the struggles of less than interesting characters as they try to find their place in the world. Because of this and the infrequent facts about the Middle East, I didn't really see the relevance of the movie. Not to be rude!
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While I enjoyed the content of the movie, I agree that the way that it was filmed was less than satisfactory. The lighting really was terrible, and there were moments when I was having a difficult time deciding if I was watching an actual documentary or if what I was seeing was staged. And the subs.. ugh. I watch a ton of subtitled anime, so I can tell pretty easily when the subs are off, and there were spots in this film where they didn't even bother to sub what they were saying! Very suspicious.
ReplyDeleteYes, you are right about the story not always relating back to the Middle East as much as it could have... it would have been more relevant to have more about the Middle East in the film rather than so much of the characters' own stories.
ReplyDeletesounds like a very interesting movie i have to watch it now..
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