It's common knowledge that filmmakers that run out of ideas or can't come up with a decent story tend to make a film about film-making itself; merely throwing together their recent experience and hope that it will result in a fascinating feature. We have been subjected to some real dross over the years but 'Living in Oblivion' is the proverbial exception to the rule, in that it isn't merely a conglomeration of "funny" disasters but they are assembled around a rather ingenious idea. As with every flick about film-making you have the different levels of the movie itself and the film that is in the making. This allows the director to switch between those different realities and blur the line between what is real and what might be merely a reproduction of reality. The basic location is a low budget film set run by a fairly incompetent and neurotic staff and apart from all the technical difficulties, true disaster strikes when the human factor raises its ugly head. The film can be roughly divided in three parts. In each part, hopelessly overworked director Nick Reve tries to cope with all the problems that can and inevitably will occur on any set and tries to prevent the whole thing from falling apart. With moderate success I might add. I don't know if you have to be interested in film making as such or if you even have to have some first hand experience to relate to this movie but I would have thought that its all kind of self explanatory. Although we would never have suspected it, the first two parts are dream sequences, thus giving the whole thing another level and hence another layer of reality, whilst the last one depicts the shooting of a dream sequence in real life. Quite clever methinks. However, the line between dream and reality is not quite as clear as you might think cause occurrences and events from the first two parts lead to what will happen in the third. All this is rather clever but what makes this an utter delight from start to finish is the directors eye for detail, how the whole thing just builds up and the great cast that is kinda stereotyped but spot on nevertheless. From the crappy catering and the bossy floor manager to the vain actor and the arty farty director everything fits just perfectly to depict an authentic scenario of underground film-making. I'm not really into comedies as such but I laughed out loud on several occasions during 'Living in Oblivion'. I really enjoyed it all the way through, but then maybe I'm a bit biased as Steve Buscemi is one of my favourite actors.
Review of Living in Oblivion
