Synopsis
About to be married for what he hopes will be the final time, Caveh Zahedi turns to us and reveals his long battle with sex addiction. His story is a difficult one for him to tell, not only for the (very, very funny) personal humiliation it entails, but because he keeps interrupting himself and jumping from one moment in his life to another, but also because he gets tangled up with explaining how the recreations were done in the movie we are now watching. Thus, having just said that he could…’t afford to shoot any scenes in Paris, suddenly, Zahedi sheepishly addresses us from Paris.
With all the conventions of the docudrama laid as bare as the protagonist’s psyche, our notions of what is true and what is fiction are reduced to rubble. Even as we spiral down into this hall of mirrors, we can’t help but smile, as Zahedi’s low key, self-deprecating approach is so engaging. A wonderful discovery.
Audio
The sound is in 2.0. More is not needed. This isn’t a sound designer’s dream project: what we hear beyond the dialogue and the jaunty score is little more than the naturalistic caught-on-home-video sounds we would expect. There is distortion during some shouting scenes, but that just adds to the documentary feel of the project. The job is done in exactly the way it should be.
Video
The shot-on-video look is here, of course, but without making the film look ugly. The colours and contrasts are very strong, with fine flesh tones and blacks. There is no grain or pixellation. So the movie looks authentically low-budget, without looking cheap or badly shot. Nice trick, nice transfer. The fullscreen aspect ratio is the film’s original format.
Special Features
Other than a few trailers, there are three scenes for which we get some behind-the-scenes footage. That’s it.
Closing Thoughts
I defy any viewer not to be sporting a broad smile within the first few seconds of this little gem.
Special Features List
- Behind-the-Scenes Footage
- Trailers
