The Pool

My experience of The Pool is a somewhat jaded one, which is by no means the fault of Richard's Bevis. I watched it taking a break from animating my own new concept, which to some degree shares Richard's dramatic ambitions. The Pool is a short film in which a man tries to save the life of a drowning girl. Simple enough, and then Bevis adds some much needed style and well-paced action to the single set piece at work here. And work it does within the dimensions it's creating. There are real moments of awe, tension and spectacle, if not pace, created by cutting between aerial views and close-up angles in the building, which while simplistic are quite stressful to a degree. And it's at that point that you realise what Bevis is doing here.

It's a film about a lot of things - not so much the life of this girl he's saving, but more about the random events that fate throws at him, so in fact its a meditation on the precariousness of life, and indeed trying to place the power of another life in your own hands. It's not about eventuality, as the film's ending seems to suggest. But maybe I have read too much into the presence of stormy skies and an apparently sudden appearence of a body in the water. That, coupled with the themes and the unfolding narrative, makes this somewhat existential. So it's not through lack of trying that Bevis' drama works and doesn't work. On a thematic level it really does, but on an emotional level - more core to the drama - it's falling over a shoelace.

Let me explain. The main reason I don't think it works dramatically is there is just not enough here. It's not padded and feels underwritten. It needs some sense of urgency implanted in the characters for us to care about whether he makes it to save her or not. Because godlike diversions aside, there's the seed of the drama. We have to care first. And having now watched it I care on a stylistic level. But there's nothing at stake here, because the girl - well who is she? Has she fallen from the sky? And more's the point the man - who is he? Why does he care (could have been an internal struggle at work). For drama to work you have to unpick everything in order to handpick your focus. And Bevis has done that for the style. He's unpicked that very successfully. But he hasn't focused on the drama itself - the mechanism he wants to create.

I'm about to say something seemingly unfair, but stay with it. The biggest stall on display is the existence of the once great M Night Shyamalan and the essentially not very good film 'Lady In The Water.' Now you can call that unfair, that film is set around a pool, huge generalisation - but there is some basic psychology at work here. If you, like Richard obviously does and I'll put myself in the same category - take yourself seriously as a film director, then inevitably you'll have influences. And these influences fuel ambition. As it stands the ambition of the 3dmmer is for the most part to create and finish a full movie. For the handful of us that take it seriously, the ambition is broader - to make it work in whatever way it's working. The Pool is a dramatic film, so it's high design is to make us emphasise with what's going on. Which is fine. Shyamalan does the same. And Bevis is doing the same, as he has done with all of his movies thus far. But I think The Pool unfortunately crosses a waypoint. His other film The Dance of The Butterfly is superior in that sense - it's got a strong mesh of originality holding it together - and The Pool sadly feels like the film Bevis made in reaction to - not countering - M Night Shyamalan.

That said, it's a great concept and it does work. There is nothing wrong with it by any means, and perhaps that tangent only applies to me - it did bother me as the film unfolded, but I imagine those who haven't seen Shyamalan aren't going to be too fased by the comparison. Which brings me to my final point - it is a Richard Bevis movie. And what I struggle with here is what everyone else has already said. Armed with a great original script Bevis could really make an amazing film, capable of being one of THE great 3dmm films. Hell, look at Shit Happens. Really badly made (with all respect Jeff) but it has a story and therefore a structure. What Richard wants to do isn't strong enough for what he is doing. He wants an engagement - and that I can applaud. Excellent Richard, it's great to see that there's a director there that wants to do that. But his films are engaging, to a point. Imagery, creation, style - definitely, but not form. The form is where it fails because The Pool's story is essentially a gimmick. And that can work in the small foundations gimmick movies do have, but Bevis' film hunts a dramatic impact, and that's a massive ambition for a gimmick. As I said, if this were a dream sequence in a longer film it'd be incredible. Or even if it was the first part of something. Richard Bevis, I urge you to write a script, or hunt one out, and stick with it because it makes all the difference.

I feel partially drained. I'm pointing out the glaring flaws of The Pool but I just don't want to. Because I respect this guy. He has ambition and so he should, it's directors like Bevis that make the community interesting and fresh - I don't want to keep watching Sniper movies forever. And bearing in mind he's already left once here's a message - keep doing what you're doing Richard, it is brilliant. You just need a concept that boasts a bigger dramatic girth. With that in mind therefore- The Pool is wry, engaging, entertaining and frustrating all at the same time. It's the kind of film you want to see more often, which makes it harder for me to say what's wrong with it. But it's a damn sight better than Lady In The Water.

7.5/10

[Aaron Haynes]

Great stuff, I tend to agree for the most part.

I think, to a degree, the lack of dramatic girth could've been fixed without necessarily expanding the story, but by constructing shots that cinematically allow us to empathize with the characters more. I'll go into further detail on this when I review it.