Short, but captivating!


STORY:

Kit is a tea leaf fortune teller who is waiting at a cafe for his friend August. When August arrives, he asks for his romantic fortune to be read. This sparks a heart-to-heart conversation between the two.

The story isn't too complex. It's just two friends sitting in a cafe talking about one friend's love life. We're not given any back story on the character, but it's through their dialogue that we learn their relationship with each other. Even then, the dialogue doesn't give us the full story. We can only make assumptions based on what they say. It's as if we, the audience, is sitting down at the same cafe listening in on their conversation. It's through their conversation that we learn they are friends. That August has a lot of admirers. And that Kit and August have shared a drunken kiss and it's eating Kit up inside. We learn all of this as they literally sit at a table and talk.

Trying not to spoil the film, I will say that the film is amazing for being able to pack as much drama as they did without getting preachy in their dialogue. Most films will have monologues that explain everything, but here, all the audience can do is guess about everything. The film does great in bringing out the personalities of each character as they sit and chat. August, being more expressive, moves around a lot in his seat as he cracks jokes. Kit, on the other hand, doesn't move much, preferring to just stare and react to August. We get to see the dynamic of the two through all of this subtle movements.

With only 30 minutes, there is a lot that we learn about Kit and August, but it's the last few minutes of the film that throws the audience for a ride. I would have given this film a 10 out of 10, if it wasn't for the ending. While the ending isn't terrible, it is a cliff hanger. Until the film makers give us a sequel the lower rating still stands.


PRODUCTION/ACTING:
(Since I went to film school, I might talk about some things that you might not have noticed, but I definitely did!)

The actors give amazing performances, but it is stunted by the highly stylized cinematography. I've read more than a few reviews saying the cinematography was amazing, but I beg to differ. The cinematography is highly stylized and beautiful, but it took away from the acting. The background lighting was a little over-exposed creating a beautiful effect, but we couldn't see half of the actor's face. In this type of film where there are no big movements or action, the audience can only rely on the dialogue and the actor's gestures and facial expressions. With the lighting they had, while beautiful to look at, we couldn't see half of the actor's face therefore it was difficult to pick up on some of the actor's expressions. I personally had a hard time seeing most of Kit's expressions since his character is more stoic than August.

Also, the mostly static, single camera was horrific. Again, the audience needs to see the actor's expressions. We also need to be visually stimulated in order to not get bored of the one setting story. The film makers tried to make the film visually stimulating with the lighting and the camera occasionally zooming into the actors. The result was the audience not being able to see more than half of the actor's facial expressions. Most of the film was a medium shot of both actors. We could occasionally see a slightly closer shot of the two, but it's clear that the camera was static and just zoomed in on the two. Towards the climax of the film, the camera starts doing this "V" like style of zooming where the single camera zooms into one actor's face, pans out to a medium shot of the two actors, then zooms into the second actor. It was difficult to watch. We barely got to see any actor's face in full. It was always cut off by the lighting and the camera angle made it difficult to see the actor's full face.

Lastly, the jump cuts! There were so many jump cuts! With the static, single camera style of cinematography the film makers were doing, the best would have been the entire film being shot in one take. However, 30 minute long one takes are very difficult to do. The film makers were able to hide the jump cuts by showing us the "close ups" of the actors, but occasionally there would be a jump cut with the same shot. It's only a split second, so many people may not have noticed, but it was very obvious if you paid attention. Also the random jump cuts into the tea pot was annoying and unnecessary.


OVERALL:

Love Advisor is a beautiful short film if you're okay with a single setting and lots of dialogue. The story was beautiful and the cinematography is highly stylized and beautiful (if you didn't go to film school.)

I hope the film makers will give us a sequel, or I will forever skip the last minute of the film.