User Reviews

Wow, once again, the ever-prolific Bob the Moo has it right when he reviewed this film. It seems that we've both seen and reviewed a lot of short films that very few of you will ever see. The fact that you are actually reading this now is amazing. Take it from Bob and me that this film isn't all that hot. While I did not view the same exact DVD that Bob saw (hence, there were no pretentious notes about the meaning of the film), I was not particularly impressed when I did see COUNTERFEIT FILM--mostly because the same year that it debuted, so did the absolutely brilliant COPY SHOP. While on the surface they may seem similar due to them both being short films as well as the technology employed to make them, they are remarkably different. COPY SHOP deservedly won the Academy Award and it is a must-see for all short film fans. COUNTERFEIT FILM, on the other hand, seems woefully inadequate by comparison--a nice idea but the film was too short and never exactly became involving. Sadly, if COUNTERFEIT FILM had come out at another time, it might have seemed more innovative, but this is a case of two similar films with results that weren't even close. A nice try, but not good enough for me to recommend COUNTERFEIT FILM.

On the DVD I saw this on the blurb said stuff about "capturing the moment when a still image becomes a movie" and when a copy "ceases to be a copy and becomes the thing itself". It all sounds very pretentious and indeed it is but the good news is that it doesn't really show in the film. The bad news is that there isn't really anything else to take its place other than a clever piece of curio viewer that is barely 2 minutes long.

The action mostly occurs on a tray of a photocopier as images come out one after the other – some very close up, others moving in series as they come. It is a clever idea and an interesting piece of experimentation for the director I suppose but beyond this there is not much for the viewer. On the same DVD Copyshop played with animated photocopies but did much better with it and produced a film that is much more for the viewer. This one is a curio but that's it.