I Believe in Unicorns (2015)

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Better Late Then Never

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

In this romantic drama a teenage girl embarks on a relationship with an older boy, a free spirit who she soon discovers has a darker violent side. She is a young girl with responsibilities beyond her age, such as looking after her disabled mother, so she wilfully disappears in her head into a fantasy world from time to time.This one could be filed under both the coming-of-age and road movie sub-categories. It has a protagonist who I did like and sympathise with. I felt the portrayal of the characters was quite realistic and there were many little moments which felt true to life. It does go into some disturbing areas it has to be said with a scene which amounted to sexual abuse, so it is a film with some darker aspects lurking below its sunny veneer. I think it was this visual side of things though which was the most impressive single aspect of this one though, with a look which reminded me of the warm glow of old photographs. It was quite beautifully done and there was quite a bit to enjoy from a visually aesthetic point-of-view. Ultimately, the content of the film itself was a bit too limited to truly make this one feel more than an interesting snapshot of something. Still, it was a fairly alluring snapshot all the same, and certainly had a distinctive look and feel to it.

Experience, indeed, defies representation or articulate expression. Just as a photograph only captures one shot of a smooth manifold aggregate of lived phenomena, so language can only restrictedly encapsulate vibrancy. But one'd hope that a sequence of such photographs enables one to peer into that share of moments, brightening up memory and trajectories of thoughts, absorbing anew the cultivating spectrum of lived emotions. Breathe.The opening credits alone immediately capture the spirit of this pure coming-of-age masterpiece. Ignoring the excusable whiny music, it alone was already so great and lingering that one'd want to stop and muse. Submergence into water necessitates the synergy of the liquid water's flows with the likewise fluid and variedly current half-obscured memories of growth intertwined with decay. Stopping for an instance, retreating below the surface, divine Davina feels the impact of the past. It's her birthday, but she's not yet ready to face it. Brooding on the past can perhaps help, before lurching further into uncertain future terrains, that will eventually also continually expand the mind's horizons.Film itself captures the process. An acoustic-visual artificial succession of events, melded with and moulded by memory, fantasy, by movements of objects that defy physical laws. Stop-motion and time-lapse show the productive capabilities of the unconscious factory, and the fragmentary apprehension of spacetime. Shades of lights correspond to different intensities. One traverses heterogenous planes, exploring natural strata, and sensing the world. The hair billows through the wind, the skateboard grinds across the concrete, the clouds, the grass, crops, trees, endless telephone wires, ... they all reverberate, grafted from their respective denotations to dance within the partial subjective perspectives, poetic experimentation and flows. Stream of consciousness.Divine Davina is in a state of becoming. The creation of memories contrasts with the stagnancy and deterioration of her mother. Touching her mother instills stifling anxieties of death and decomposition, the limit of possibilities - "la forme et l'essence divine / De mes amours décomposés". She still has a life ahead, and hence must venture into those fairy tales and badlands.Becoming the nomadic voyager, wandering about. Dreaming and playing. Feeling the full spectrum of emotions. The unicorn and the dragon. Multivariate and recombining flinches of desire, sadness, happiness, loneliness, abandonment, comfort, disappointment, surprise, danger, warmth, coldness, excitement, pain, pleasure, ... transitions between various intensive states and interactions with a significant other, who's active and feeling too, differently, but reciprocally, within a changeable complex relationship.Finally one has to digest the trip, make time for thought. The past becomes another series of photographs, pages of diaries, details, conclusions, and material mementos. And then one continues on, indefinitely."There's so much I want to say. But I don't know where to start."

Looking at the titles chosen for the ICM Film Festival,this one and Ivy stood out as the ones that would be hardest to find. Getting lucky in stumbling on Ivy,I just could not find this film anywhere. Wanting to find all the movies so that a fellow IMDber could also see them,I did an extensive search over the weekend,and by pure chance,was able to finally start believing in unicorns.The plot:Taking care of her ill mum since she was a child, Davina dreams of traveling to a world of knights in shining armour, dinosaurs,and shining unicorns. Getting closer to her long-term crush Sterling,Davina starts to look towards the open world. Going on a road trip with Sterling, Davina discovers a world far from her fantasies.View on the film:Seamlessly blending earthy drama with handmade flight of fantasy,writer/director Leah Meyerhoff & cinematographer Jarin Blaschke give Sterling and Davina's road trip in incredible Mumblecore intimacy,with a light colour stylisation and fragile camera moves bringing out the raw emotion between the couple. Dipping into Davina's imagination, Meyerhoff brings her dreams to life with a sweet kooky vibe,where the colourful stop-motion animation neatly contrasts the rustic,dusty appearance of the open road.Layering their travels with Davina's narration, the screenplay by Meyerhoff drives into a Showgaze groove,with Davina and Sterling's exchanges hanging in the air with an awkward warmth, and a deep feeling of a passage of time gliding pass Davina's fantasies fading into the distance. Sitting next to Peter Vack's great, rough round the edges performance as Sterling, Natalia Dyer gives an excellent,attention-grabbing performance as Davina,whose expresses face chimes with the whimsical and the melancholy of Davina's unicorn dreams.

This is an honest, well-composed film with a unique style. I Believe in Unicorns takes you in to the mind of a teenager as she struggles with what life has given with her. It shows her inner turmoil and hopes using fantastic imagery. And even though it is full of imagination, it presents a realistic picture of this young lady's life. It does not offer some "great solution" to life's problems. Instead,it shows the pain of growing up and facing the world for what it is - often disappointing and not all we wish it could be. Though it is definitely geared towards a female audience, if you understand that film is an art form and not an amusement park ride - whether you are male or female - you will enjoy this coming of age picture. Try it out. It's worth it.