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Preview by: Jack Foley
HE MAY be best known for cool films such as Ocean's 11, 12 and
Erin Brockovich, but Steven Soderbergh is a director who is tireless
in his ambition to push cinema forward.
Earlier this year, for instance, the Section Eight production
company he co-owns with George Clooney signed a radical deal to
provide finance for six films to be shot on hi-def video and released
simultaneously in American movie theatres, on DVD and on television.
Bubble is the first of these, written and directed by Soderbergh
himself and shot with a cast of non-professionals and a verité
feel.
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It promises to become one of the
more interesting films of the London Film Festival, due to its
innovative techniques and the way in which it seeks to tackle
the onset of change within the movie industry (especially as piracy
continues to become its biggest threat).
The film is set in blue collar Ohio and follows Martha and Kyle,
two workers at the local doll factory, who are best buddies.
When an attractive young woman joins the production line, Martha
sees her friend falling for the newcomer's more obvious charms,
leading to plenty of twists and surprises.
The London Film Festival website credits Bubble with being primarily
a murder mystery, that also functions as 'a very fine piece of
social observation, showing the lives of American people just
getting by'.
The characters, as we have come to expect from a Soderbergh movie,
are richly defined but thanks to the shooting technique, actually
feel like real people.
It remains to be seen what festival-goers will make of it when
the film plays on October 26 and 29.
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