Written by Cain Noble-Davies
Value: $17.00
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monster fest
cast:
Nicole Pastor, Jordan Fraser-Trumble, Stephen Degenaro, Jasper Bag
Intro:
… Relentless anxiety creates an atmosphere that rivals Cam’s inside-out rawness and Berberian Sound Studio’s surreal creative dissociation.
Working as a freelancer is a contradiction in terms of independence. Rather than being tied down to a claustrophobic office environment, employees will be able to choose their own working conditions and may even be able to work from home. But the reality, like any other field of work, is not so ideal.
Most types of content creators (editors, cinematographers, actors, writers) live their lives in check, so they don’t have much leeway to turn down work, even if it affects them. They are also not immune to the problems that plague the standard workforce, where practical experience is required but if it does not fit the narrow definition of what is considered “experience”, it may be rejected, or worse, initially was confined to a working area that was intended only as a placeholder for better opportunities later. It’s a dream job, and sometimes a nightmare.
Freelance Melbourne-based filmmaker John Balazs takes a look at this extreme example in action. Video editor Katie (Nicole Pastor) is struggling to make ends meet with sizzle footage and porn, but receives a mysterious offer to edit something…no. At first, she thought the short footage of grainy, disturbing violence she was sent was just a student film, but as time went on, she not only realized the truth of what she was seeing, but also that It starts to bother her both figuratively and literally. .
The Reverend does a great job playing the lead role in her first film, making Katie’s thoroughly unpleasant demeanor very noteworthy, as well as conveying the film’s mounting psychological torment and its impact on her life. I am doing it. She is someone who, if you encountered her in nature, would scream, “What the hell is her problem?”, but she consistently makes it clear that there is a reason why she reacts to the world the way she does. It shows. She is a product of a society that gives the workforce the illusion of choice, but is ultimately designed to screen and sift through people until they will do whatever it takes to make that month’s bill. has been.
The film’s technique adds to that constant unease, creating an atmosphere on par with Cam’s inside-out rawness and Berberian Sound Studio’s surreal creative dissociation. David Chan’s computer screen-filled cinematography, mixed with Kai Cheng Lim’s minimalist soundtrack and Johnny Varga’s digital scalpel editing, not only emphasizes the unease; Creating content from murder adds an interesting metatextual dimension to this story. The piece openly pokes at technical and audience expectations for the macabre medium, with Katie essentially tasked with filming LiveLeak videos and making them “scary” through the power of post-production. owed. As if reality isn’t scary enough.
Freelance is a dark and eerily accurate portrayal of modern freelance work, and you’ll understand why it’s beyond sordid. Beyond the 8MM-esque details, this piece provides the occasional belly laugh from the absurdity of this being real, but mostly it plays with this exact “whatever pays the bill” mentality. It exists as a dramatic indictment of the capitalist system it produces in its people. Anchored by a truly outstanding lead performance from Nicole Pastor, the film uses the power of the world to create a story of paranoia, guilt, death, and the omnipotent horror of knowing that the beginning of the month is just around the corner. It’s a psychological thriller with cramped production values. Is your bill up to date? You better hope so…
