Dead Time

(Canada )

 A Sweetblood production.

Produced, directed, edited by Steve Sanguedolce.

With: Tim Bolen, Anna Myszkowski, Amber Patterson, Chris Welsh.

By DENNIS HARVEY

Canadian experimental feature "Dead Time" offers audio testimony from four precariously recovering former drug addicts, as actors re-enact the endlessly downward-spiraling incidents recalled. Adding an element of avant-garde novelty is multi-hyphenate helmer Steve Sanguedolce's decision to shoot in B&W, then hand-color the images to frequently psychedelic effect. Whether this actually serves the grim base material or distracts from it is unclear, but pic is ultimately more stimulating as a purely visual experience than as a narrative one. Select fests and cinematheques may want to take this trip.

Real-life protags identified as Mark, Reg, Wendy and Julie (the latter duo sisters) relate their personal sagas that start out bleak and get a whole lot bleaker before "breaking the cycle" of addiction becomes -- at least for some -- a tenuous reality. Their testimonies are a catalog of antisocial behaviors, yet little sympathy is generated, in part because the welfare of their children is insufficiently addressed, and in part because the protags' personalities are solely defined by the crises related. Rather literal-minded dramatizations by thesping cast wouldn't be terribly interesting without the colored, distressed film stock adding mystique.

Camera (B&W, 16mm-to-35mm), Sanguedolce; music, Sanguedolce.

Reviewed at World Film Festival (World Cinema), Montreal, Aug. 27, 2005.

Running time: 80 MIN.