Mitchellville
won an Honorable Mention Jury Prize at CineVegas in 2004. A comment on its
IMDB synopsis reads ‘This is an amazing
first film that, unfortunately, may fit into that category of movies too good
to get distribution.’ It's playing on Sundance
Channel as I write this.
I didn't catch this from the beginning, and it feels like the kind of movie
that should be watched from the beginning. It's subtle and sophisticated. The
writing is smart and a bit sassy: Asked what he does for a living, the protagonist
answers ‘I represent corporations.’ The other character replies
‘So you're a crimial lawyer!’
The
photography isn't as lush as Wang Kar Wei's In
the Mood For Love, but it has a bit of that quality that locates the
action somewhere between dreaming and awakening, imagination and reality. The
five or so minutes that I watched also evoked the atmosphere of corruption
in Boiler
Room.
