So, here I was minding my own business when I was made aware of this friend of a friend so to speak that is involved in comics and film out on the west coast, and he has in fact made a film and matching comic book that is apparently quite good, so I happen to mention that that might be something that I should have a look at, and perhaps write a little review on... Now flashback about 10 years ago to me in film class, in a cold sweat, as I realize while it’s easy to critique Hollywood formulaic crap, FILM, and even more so, independent film, on the other hand is something entirely different. Film seems to operate on so many levels it boggles the mind and leaves me mentally numb as to how the hell I am supposed to decrypt an interpretive painting of a plot line told in motion pictures in to a condensed form that a casual reader will understand, while still doing the film justice... and here I am again, years later, same situation, in awe of a film, and almost without words, almost.
The film and matching comic in question is Jim Cliffe’s Tomorrow’s Memoir and matching Tomorrow’s Memoir: Prequel comic book. I would like to open this review by saying I can’t agree enough with the overwhelming list of people in festival circuit and the casual viewers that are awe stuck by this Films magnitude not only as an independent project, but when also compared toe to toe alongside mainstream directors / writers earlier and present works. Some of these parallels came to mind the first time I watched the film and then looked at the composition of the comic book as a prequel storyboard. My first thoughts without risking spoilers are the entire film has a very heavy slant to the film noir genre that works extremely well with the strong story and character development. This development drives the film and shows us several bursts of cinematically brilliant windows in to the main characters checkered past and uncertain future.
It’s Jim’s strong eye for visual storytelling that puts many elements of this short on par in terms of skill and as a kindred spirit with features like Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, V for Vendetta and The Road to Perdition. While this might seem like a bit of a mashing together of movies of varied styles, they all feature strong character development, advanced use of camera placement and movement, with a peppering of special effects, to take the ordinary to extraordinary in each scene without having sacrifice the story with overdone artistic vision. On this note as well, visual effects and attention to detail in this film like prop newspapers, explosions, casualties, professional looking newscasts capturing various periods in history, etc were very impressive on the shoe string budget of only two thousand dollars Canadian. This coupled with stunning acting on the part of the lead (Stephen Jefferys) set this short well apart from other independents I have seen online and in short film festival environments and even further apart when the budget is taken again in to account.
Now while this is in fact a rave review, and it is public record that this film has received festival awards, nods, and a screening at the San-Diego Comic Con in 2005 there still is the need for mention of my personal perception of a shortcoming of this production. That of course would be Agent Wayne played by Michael Collier. On my first viewing basking in the overwhelming goodness of the film, there was a little something that kept eating away at me from time to time and that was when Agent Wayne would appear on screen and say anything. I don’t know if it was in fact an active attempt by Collier to have a sort of Keanu in Point Break like quality to his delivery, but when his performance was put opposite of Stephen Jefferys it was clear the veteran actor’s performance was in a league of it own, well above that of Collier that seemed a little lost character wise sounding like a surfer when in fact playing a seasoned federal agent.
All of this being said, what do I know right, or for that matter the festival circuits reviewers and judges, I would strongly recommend that you view the copy of this film below and make up your own mind, but since this is my review I will take this last moment to call it a resounding and impressive success. The past may be prologue as they say, but it is very safe to say that one day Tomorrow’s Memoir will be key part of an intriguing prologue to the memoirs of Jim Cliffe’s cinema career.
You can learn more about Jim Cliffe or his production company Temporal Eclipse at the links below.
http://www.temporalellipsis.com/
http://www.tomorrowsmemoir.com/
http://www.jimcliffe.com/
Posted: Saturday, August 26, 2006