11-11-11 is a film based
around prophecy and uncertainty. Unfortunately, it transpires that the film’s
central mystery is how it can be so profoundly unengaging. Frustratingly, it
looks like it should work. It has the hallmarks of horror aesthetics – minor
key musical stabs and drones accompany points of suspense and punctuate the
moments that are meant to make the audience jump… Sadly, it just all falls
flat.
Since there was little in the plot to
distract me, I was eventually able to pinpoint some of the numerous reasons the
film fails as a fright-piece. Some of the burden lies with the editor. Timing
is crucial for fear-flicks, and it doesn’t come off in 11-11-11. Since
Martin Hunter is experienced having edited films such as Full Metal Jacket
and Event Horizon, I can only assume he either realised that the film
was a write-off, faced pressure/interference from studio execs, or simply had
poor footage to work with.
There are several indications that the
footage captured was less than stellar. The climax graveyard sequence is crassly
chopped together from a mangled series of close-ups. While I could ascertain
what was happening, the sequence failed to adequately establish the space,
meaning I had no idea how far apart the characters were from one another. Such
issues are not only distracting, but also impinge on the film’s ability to
build excitement. The car crash early in the film is equally flawed. Joseph
drives out of frame, and the camera follows Sadie, who then hears a crash and
runs to the car, which is revealed to have flipped over. The problem is that it
never feels like the crashed car had ever been moving because the framing and
pacing are off. The combination of (a) how little distance the car covers, and
(b) the length of time it is off-camera means the car cannot have picked up
enough speed to overturn so violently. The ADR sound effect is limp, and
Sadie’s reaction shot needs to be much stronger to pull off the
sleight-of-hand.
The reason I labour this point is that it is
representative: the entire film is off-rhythm. That the film has no opening
credits wrong-foots the pacing from the outset. For the first ten minutes, I
expected a natural break that would establish the prologue, but it never came.
This feeling persisted because the film lacked evenly spaced structure points
more generally. There is nothing wrong with being unconventional, but when the
plot and aesthetics are as utterly generic as they are in 11-11-11, I’d
expect the structure to follow suit.
The film maintains its ‘all slow, no burn’
approach for the first hour, so when something finally happens I thought I’d be
pleased. Instead I was wrong-footed again. When the narrative kicks into gear,
too much happens. The last half hour contains most of the film’s action. Hell,
it also boasts most of the film’s ideas. By that point, any interest in
those events had been quashed by the sterility that precedes them. To top it
off, Bousman treats us to a recap of “significant” pieces of dialogue,
explaining a twist that didn’t need explication. Such recaps worked in the Saw
movies because it was one of the franchise’s defining traits, and befitted the Saw series' playful uses of time/space and flashback. To export and appropriate
the technique here feels forced and out of character.
I
will give Bousman this: at least it didn’t turn out that Joseph died in the
film’s early car crash. There were hints that it might have gone that way, and
the production was sloppy enough that it could have had that limp an ending.
After all, the script left a lot to be d esired.
Some of the dialogue is downright laughable. Take, for example, the risible
line ‘I am not Kathy Bates but I will call misery on you if you are not up in
two seconds’. Pathetic. At least this line didn’t make it into the denouement’s
flashback montage, unlike the references to Joesph’s ’legion’ of fans. What could
this mean in a film that was re-titled 666: The Prophecy for its UK DVD
release?
It is also beyond me why Bousman felt the
need to keep repeating Joseph’s exasperation that Samuel believes in God, and
yet does not believe in 11-11′s significance. One
mention would be plenty. More than just exposes how silly the comparison is: if
one believes in the Christian God, should they also believe in every intangible
entity anyone mentions? Krishna? The tooth fairy? Wendy Glenn’s acting ability?
The premise itself is just as flawed. Like
Michael Bafaro’s film 11:11 (2004) before it, the apparently scary 11-11
phenomenon is lost 11-11-11‘s fictionality. Recurring references to
11-11 could be eerie if they really happened in someone’s life. However, when
intentionally constructed in drama, they fall flat. When synchronous events
occur, they are potent because they have coincided, and the person who notices
the pattern contributes to that meaning. When a scriptwriter artificially
fashions events, that quality is lost because there is no room for chance here:
everything is fated because the scriptwriter deems it so. I understand that the
11-11 phenomenon has a background, but had Bousman opted for 9-11 instead, the
film would have had an extra dimension and some sass. The narrative’s paranoid
conspiracy plot would have taken on explicitly political overtones, and Bousman
could have made interesting meta-commentary on his own filmic reputation given
that Saw has been commonly interpreted as 9/11 allegory.
What I will say is that the set designers
had some fun with the 11-11 premise. Plenty of “11″ shapes pop up in the background; take the windows in Samuel’s
study, for example…
11-11-11!!
This is far and away the smartest aspect of the film. Enough of these are
included throughout that, like the obsessive ‘eleveners’ in the film, I started
seeing ”11″ shape almost everywhere in the film’s sets. Obviously it helps
that the narrative is so dull that I was primed to look for something of
interest, but it became quite a fun game. A couple of pillars: 11! A pair of
trees: 11! A shelf of books – 111111111!
As someone who loved Saw 2-4, I am
reluctant to say this… but I am finding hard to deny that Bousman has no idea
what he is doing. His Mother’s Day had too many characters and
consequently Bousman could not sustain their arcs. With Repo! he just
plain tried too hard, and the film felt forced as a result. It is beginning to
look like Burg, Koules, Greutert and co. really carried Bousman through the Saw
films, which is fine considering Bousman’s inexperience at the time.
However, now that he is flying solo, I expected Bousman to grow rather than
regress.
Unfortunately for him and for the audience, 11-11-11
feels like his most naive film to date.
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