{"id":6835,"date":"2011-07-31T21:03:34","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T01:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.regrettablesincerity.com\/?p=6835"},"modified":"2011-07-31T21:03:34","modified_gmt":"2011-08-01T01:03:34","slug":"gravehopping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/?p=6835","title":{"rendered":"Gravehopping"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>During my first year of college, when I was still a film student, I met a Spaniard, also in the film program, who bragged about not watching any movies. \u201cI don\u2019t want to have any outside influences,\u201d he said. I tried explaining the notion of parallel thinking; my senior year of high school I wrote a chase scene that began aboard a New York City train that was remarkably similar in style and content to the famous one in The French Connection<\/em>. I was unaware of this because the actors I was using weren\u2019t film enthusiasts who spent their time watching 25 year old movies, and because I didn\u2019t see The French Connection<\/em> until six months after finishing the script. I felt foolish, but a little grateful that the scene was far too complex, would have required a great deal of permission from the police to execute, and a slew of permits that I would not have been able to afford on my enormous $236 budget.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Spaniard\u2019s outlook is one that Gravehopping <\/em>writer\/director Jan Cvitkovic came to the filmmaking table with, claiming to have no influences whatsoever. So Cvitkovic would often be amused by the interpretations by local film critics, citing the masters that he was obviously tipping his hat to. Cvitkovic is an archaeologist by trade, which makes perfect sense considering his obsession with dirt and digging throughout Gravehopping<\/em>. Whether he should be blamed for ripping off Harold & Maude<\/em>, with the father character always trying to find elaborate ways to kill himself, tweaked for comedic effect\u2026 Well that probably just comes from Cvitkovic\u2019s attempt to play with our expectations on how human beings react to death.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Gravehopping<\/em>, also known more appropriately as From Grave to Grave<\/em>, <\/em>is misleading in that way; the main character Pero (Gregor Bakovic), who, as his form of employment gives outlandish and self-indulgent speeches at funerals, has no irony about his work. The audience views Pero\u2019s preparations and the actual words coming out of his mouth as ridiculous, and maybe the bereaved do too (it\u2019s never made overtly clear) but they\u2019re too sad to speak up, thinking that it would be rude and disruptive to do so. Is that why Pero continues to get work, despite his obvious shortcomings? One assumes that in this small Slovenian village, the locals don\u2019t use the Better Business Bureau much.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The early scenes of Gravehopping <\/em>have such a droll attitude towards death that the movie is bound to catch you by surprise if and when it adjusts its tone. Pero\u2019s mechanic friend (who dates Pero\u2019s mute sister) assumes that Pero will have time off during a long weekend because \u201cit\u2019s a new moon, no one will be dying now.\u201d Pero\u2019s father, the suicidal Dedo, goes to a psychologist who insists that he write an essay on why he wants to commit suicide. The opening funeral scene has a brass band score, playing a cover of Gloria Gaynor\u2019s disco classic \u201cI Will Survive.\u201d Cvitkovic cleverly lowers our guard so even when there\u2019s a bit of unexpected violence, in the next scene, Pero sits at his dinner table, dressed like Where\u2019s Waldo?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And it\u2019s not just the approach that\u2019s different in Gravehopping<\/em>, the audience\u2019s lack of knowledge about the how Slovenia became a Democratic sovereign nation is an advantage. The actors have such a unique look, often with sad, oval-shaped faces, which might suggest a slowness or simplicity, exacerbated by what appears to be a mostly farm and fishing culture. Technology isn\u2019t very evident, and Cvitkovic, ever the spiritual skeptic archaeologist, never makes it obvious that Slovenia is primarily secular, unlikely to bow to more faith-based pressures.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Cvitkovic does<\/em> outsmart himself at times, there\u2019s too much showoffy fancy camerawork (a crane shot over a cemetery is especially egregious), and his shoehorning in of a Raymond Carver-style fisherman subplot is anything but elegant. That the sister is an adorable mute* who looks and acts like the willowy Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves<\/em> is not a matter of Cvitkovic betraying his monk-like attitude towards film and ripping off Lars Von Trier<\/span><\/a>, but rather just being lazy and reducing some characters to a \u201cthing\u201d instead of a person. After all, clich\u00e9s are universal, no matter how much ignorance you claim.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Perhaps if Cvitkovic had been aware of the major problems that screenwriters come across in trying to properly develop a third act, he would have attempted a smoother entry towards the more melodramatic and kitchen-sink elements of Gravehopping<\/em>. Cvitkovic\u2019s instincts towards the quiet (his 2003 short, The Heart is a Piece of Meat<\/em>, featuring two of the supporting actors from Gravehopping<\/em>, has no dialogue) are what help him when he\u2019s out of his depth. Sometimes wordlessness is about subtlety, sometimes it\u2019s about not knowing what to say. The beauty is that there\u2019s no way to tell the difference.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>* Spoiler:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And a Jesus martyr mute, at that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During my first year of college, when I was still a film student, I met a Spaniard, also in the film program, who bragged about not watching any movies. \u201cI don\u2019t want to have any outside influences,\u201d he said. I tried explaining the notion of parallel thinking; my senior year of high school I wrote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12],"tags":[5188,8070,105,1010,153,2358,8068,2211,1337,8069,383,7942,8066,8065,8061,8064,2403,5511,8062,283,1013,7591,8073,4600,3530,1121,8071,8075,1900,5189,2238,1166,8067,8072,514,505,476,8063,8074,330],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6835"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regrettablesincerity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}