Circulation (2008)

So much average

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A laconic drifter picks up a pretty hitcher, after she survived a crash when kidnapped by her violent ex-husband. Together they set out on a strange journey.Odd road movie that gives away too much in the IMDb description and the opening, noir-style voice over. The direction and writing are naive, probably taking on more than they can handle, but the concept is interesting and needed more sophistication for full delivery. Shades of Tarantino and Lynch, but the dialogue is no more than functional, the editing klutzy, and there are plenty of impracticalities to take you out of the story.A previous reviewer's point about the spider-rope metaphor is good, but the insect-arachnid sequences were needed to remind us of stuff the screenplay couldn't deliver. This is literal enough to be a horror, albeit one that lacks guts. Lead actress is good, touch of Chloe Sevigny in her close-ups. The threatening characters needed to be a lot more intense and stylized.Music suited it perfectly, the most enjoyable part of a short but fairly slow running time.Overall, slightly interesting so I mark it up to 5.

There are some mild spoilers throughout this review, but nothing that you wouldn't get from watching the first ten minutes of the movie.Anyone who likes thrillers knows about the "car chase in the desert" sub-genre. These movies are generally set in California, Texas, or Mexico; star an everyman protagonist who usually doesn't get more than minimal characterization; and are, essentially, just road trip movies with a psychopath chasing behind the protagonist. Probably the most famous and best of the lot was The Hitcher, starring Rutger Hauer as the biggest, baddest desert-chasing psychopath of all time.This is a very interesting movie. Due to the mix of literal and metaphorical elements, the movie is a bit difficult to understand at first. It starts off with a little bit of narration where the male lead, Gene, announces that he's a dead man, aimlessly drifting through Mexico in his pickup. He has no purpose, and he misses his family. If you're like me, you took this as metaphor. But, no: he literally is dead, and this is purgatory. He also tells us that he's been having vivid, disturbing dreams about being a spider, along with accompanying compulsions in his waking life. This is also a gigantic, literal clue that we're supposed to pay attention to. In this afterlife, each person has an animal nature, such as the spider. I think many people were a bit confused by this, as well, and took it as metaphor.Gene, who speaks no Spanish, eventually comes upon Ana, a woman who speaks no English. They struggle to communicate but eventually give up. Ana is trying to meet up with her boyfriend, but her jealous ex-husband is chasing her. Gene, unable to communicate with her, is oblivious to the danger of her ex-husband. The drifter Gene seems to welcome having an opportunity to help someone who has direction in her life, though the two are tragically unable to truly interact meaningfully with each other. This seems deliberate. Ana's ex-husband seems to communicate only in terms of violence, lashing out angrily at everyone in the movie.Gene seems to understand that he's in purgatory, but others don't quite seem to get it. Ana, for instance, is confused by the appearance of her dead brother, the strange compulsions that she's been feeling, and why people are behaving so bizarrely. The movie toys with further exposition at one point, when Gene and Ana's brother, Miguel, obliquely discuss what's going on. Gene: "Have you told her yet?" Miguel: "Told her what?" Gene: "So, you haven't told her." Miguel: "She's introspective. She'll figure it out."This comes after we see humans murdering each other, vomiting on the corpses, and committing cannibalism. As if all that weren't enough, we see our protagonist, Gene, wrapping people up in rope, like a spider wraps up its future meals in webbing. It's a somewhat disturbing visual, once you get the metaphor. Indeed, later on in the movie, we see him snacking on one of his wrapped corpses.Unfortunately, despite the opening narration ("I'm a dead man in purgatory", "My nature is turning into that of a spider"), some people just couldn't understand what was going on. I was pretty confused, too, until it finally clicked, and I realized that the opening narration was meant to be literal explanation of the plot of the movie rather than some metaphorical clue that had to be interpreted. I think that the opening narration was probably added later on so that people would understand what's going on. Ironically, it ended up confusing some people even more, because they weren't expecting the director to simply and explicitly explain all the symbolism in his movie right in the opening scene. When this is done, it's usually done in the conclusion, not the opening scene. The conclusion itself was a bit subtle -- or, at least, not as overt as the opening scene.If you enjoy surrealism, thrillers, or road movies, this may appeal to you. The pacing is a little slower than most thrillers, spending more time on atmosphere and tension than on action scenes, but it's never boring or slow. Some of the symbolism (wrapping people up in rope, for example) is very confusing at first. As well, there are some extended scenes shot entirely in Spanish, which might annoy you if you dislike reading subtitles (and don't speak Spanish). However, I liked this movie, and I think it shows a lot of potential. If the director can work on finding a better middle ground between overtly explaining all the symbolism and subtly hinting at metaphor, I think he'll make some even better movies. I couldn't decide between a 6/10 and 7/10, so I decided to be generous and go with a 7/10.I'm usually pretty good at catching metaphor and symbolism, but even I got a bit frustrated and confused at certain points in this movie, so I can totally understand how someone would dislike it. My advice is to pay special attention to the opening scene, with its important narration. Unfortunately, there's no warning that this information is of critical importance, so it's easy to miss, making the rest of the movie a confusing jumble of surreal images. This is probably the biggest fault in the movie.

I got fooled by a couple of reviews here on IMDb stating that this was a good movie. It also had a pretty good rating of 7+ stars when I decided to watch it and since the rating has dropped to 4, where it should be.I now know I need to read a little further into the comments. This was a bad movie. The plot wholes were so big you could drive a giant semi truck through them. The main characters were not like able. Nor could you relate to them in any way.There were no real redeeming values I could say this film holds. It doesn't really tell a story, in the sense of beginning, middle & end. It also doesn't leave you feeling like you need to watch more of this supposed plot, and the characters are so flat that you can't say they were doing a character study.All I can say is stay away from this one. It's not good.

Went to the local premiere for this film the other night. Now, I've been to premieres before, and you never know what to expect. Should I get up and walk out if it's bad? Do I stay and pretend to enjoy it?Well, this one gripped me right from the beginning. Fascinating characters. Interesting story line. More than its share of truly creepy moments. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it for days. The only reason I don't give it more than an 8, well, I don't want Ryan Harper to think he's hit his peak after only one movie. Besides, I didn't completely understand it until afterward, when someone who has seen it several times explained it to me.Well worth the ticket price in a day and age when so many movies are just a waste of time. My only regret... I didn't get Mr. Harper's autograph! He's going to be famous someday!