Look Both Ways DVD Review

It has been some time since I have written a review of any kind, at least a year and probably even longer than that, so forgive me if this is a little rusty I will do my best. Given the time since my last review it was probably in hindsight not such a great idea to start with a review of such a melancholy independent Australian film. But for my sins, here I am reviewing Look Both Ways.

Look Both Ways is a very quiet, sombre and slow paced film about a group of loosely interconnected people and the life changing events of one weekend. The thing that loosely connects all of these people is death, specifically the tragic death of a young man who’s hit by a train while walking his dog.

The main story focuses on photographer Nick (William McGuiness) and Meryl (Justine Clarke) who meet at the scene of the accident. Nick discovers that he has testicular cancer that has also spread to his lungs, but unexpectedly while facing such terrifying news he also discovers love in Meryl, an artist who has also just lost her father.

Other characters in the story, include reporter Andy who is having relationship issues with his pregnant girlfriend Anna. Phil who is Nicks editor and whom starts to reflect on his own life when he hears about Nicks cancer. There’s the wife of the man killed in the train accident who obviously has her own mourning to deal with and finally there is the driver of the train who is struggling to come to terms with what has happened.

As you can tell, this is not a cheery film or a comedy in any sense of the word, the film is extremely sombre all the way through and to some extent this is its’ downfall. Although I enjoyed it overall it did suffer from a few problems. My main gripe is the overuse of musical montages. Every ten minutes or so there seems to be someone looking thoughtfully off into the distance while some suitable moody music track plays in the background. Also there are a lot of animations used in the film particularly towards the beginning, the animations are generally just a few second clips and they kind of show what’s going on inside the mind of either Nick or Meryl at the time. They both tend to see death everywhere, be it a train wreck, a care pile or sharks attacking in the sea, these visions of death are portrayed through the animations.

It’s hard to know just what I thought of this film, on the one hand I thought the story was very strong but on the other hand, I just felt some of the delivery was lacking. I do have to confess that the conclusion of the train driver did have me filling up and the film did end well but then comes the biggest crime of all. After a perfect little ending, they decided to add some montage scene that showed future events that just ruined the feel of the whole thing. It’s like they decided right at the last minute to add some cheesy Hollywood happy ending that sticks out like a sore thumb, totally unnecessary.

Video / Audio

As usual Tartan provide the options of both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 soundtracks as well as a Dolby Stereo option. In terms of both sound and video, there’s nothing to complain about here just as there is nothing to write home about. The low budget of the original film shows through but this is no problem. Occasionally some of the dialogue was drowned out by the music or the background sounds but overall it was ok. Not one for showing off your system, but no problems that will distract from the viewing experience.

Extras

The only extra on the disk is a short animated feature from writer / director Sarah Watts. The feature is very much in the style of the animations in Look Both Ways and the story is of a woman who constantly sees images of doom and disaster in every day events, from traffic accidents to drowning in the sea. The animation is around six minutes long.

Overall

I do feel bad about writing some of the above as this is the first non Hollywood movie I’ve sat and watched for a while and in this respect it really was a breath of fresh air. However I can’t ignore some of the niggling issues that detracted from an otherwise strong and well delivered story. It will be interesting to see what writer / director Sarah Watt delivers with her next movie whatever that shall be.

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