Compliance

Started by Jeremy Blackman, April 21, 2013, 12:49:24 AM

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Jeremy Blackman

Just watched this tonight, and it definitely worked for me.

For those unaware, here's a brief spoiler-free synopsis: In a busy fast food restaurant, one phone call leads to a series of events that raise questions about why people comply with authority, and under what circumstances they'll cross certain lines. It's sort of fun going into the film knowing only that. It's based on a true story.

It's a film that tackles this one facet of human experience, and I admire that. It feels small in scope and scale, but deeply ambitious, and something about that completely works here.

It doesn't have quite the sense of dread that might have been achieved. (Maybe I'd feel different as a teenage girl.) I watched it unfold with uneasy fascination more than anything.

Everything is crafted with the sort of precision that makes things plausible, which is quite an accomplishment, because the story is completely ridiculous on paper.

In the DVD interview with the writer/director, he immediately starts talking about studies of people following orders under stress against their own better judgement. And the film does such a great job of showing how that works...

BIG SPOILERS AHEAD

For example, the fiance was in the perfect position to comply. He was just drunk enough, but more importantly, his personality seems predisposed to compliance (remember how he extra-politely called Sandra earlier about visiting his friend). He's certainly in a stressful situation, eager to do a favor for Sandra, confused about what's going on, generally vulnerable. There also must be a few dark corners of his psyche that allow him to carry out the later tasks.

The scraggly looking guy who comes in at the end is completely the opposite, in terms of personality and circumstance. He's not in a stressful situation... just stopping by to have a milkshake.

The rest of the people fell somewhere in between.

Describing it in words sounds like insufferable pop psychology, but the movie lays it all out with remarkable subtlety. I didn't expect it to be this well-crafted.

Pubrick

at least name a single person in it, or the writer/director, or even a measly picture!

i know i can look this up myself but that's the effort xixax is supposed to save. especially with a movie with such a BORING title.

it's why people post trailers in the first post of a thread. based on presentation alone this has not captured my interest at all. sorry.

i know you said it's best to go into the movie knowing nothing but this is less than nothing, i'm not even sure if this movie is in english or what. nothing.

EDIT: i've since learned that this started as an idea in the shout box. so there's obviously an audience out there for barebones threads. put it down to a mild annoyance. but it's pushing mild! i mean it's like you're reviewing a book or something.
under the paving stones.

jenkins

:)

watching the movie led me to reading wikipedia. seems like most of the movie characters were based on real life characters from the incident occurring in kentucky. and the calls appeared to have happened in small rural towns. probably the criminal made calls to small places in order to avoid large police units, but maybe also to find

some dumb fucks, you know. watching the movie, i felt odd right away, and later i felt terrible. it's weird it took another person to remind them to check that it was really a cop. you can look up the millions of dollars people won because of this horrible problem. why not "what's your police number, going to call the station and make sure you're real?" why not that? it's what i kept thinking

other stories it's based on, like the milgram experiment and the stanford prison experiment, were college studies that were frightening but purposely fictitious

so my main problem was "this feels fucking terrible" but it's cool other people like the movie

zobel is great with characters. a lessterrible way to witness his skills is through his other movie, great world of sound. <3 that movie. not sure if the horribleness of this led him to the project, or if it was the angle as a potentially popular cinematic creation. idk, wonder

k

Jeremy Blackman

Quote from: Pubrick on April 21, 2013, 04:45:53 AMat least name a single person in it, or the writer/director, or even a measly picture!

Fair enough.

The trailer isn't extremely spoilerful. It does spoil one early-ish development that's best left unknown, but it's not too bad. And it's probably something that's being revealed in every synopsis of the movie.

Although, shockingly, Netflix's synopsis isn't spoilerful, and it's pretty good:

"Based on a true incident, this tense drama unfolds as a prank caller pretends to be a cop and convinces a restaurant manager to interrogate her teenaged employee about a supposed theft from a customer — a situation that soon spins out of control."



The stills aren't that exciting. Just pictures of people on the phone. But I'll include them anyway.

Jeremy Blackman

Quote from: trashculturemutantjunkie on April 21, 2013, 09:59:27 AMwatching the movie led me to reading wikipedia. seems like most of the movie characters were based on real life characters from the incident occurring in kentucky. and the calls appeared to have happened in small rural towns. probably the criminal made calls to small places in order to avoid large police units, but maybe also to find

some dumb fucks, you know. watching the movie, i felt odd right away, and later i felt terrible. it's weird it took another person to remind them to check that it was really a cop. you can look up the millions of dollars people won because of this horrible problem. why not "what's your police number, going to call the station and make sure you're real?" why not that? it's what i kept thinking

Well yeah, that's the point of the movie. It's asking why and how. It expects us to shake our heads. Some people are dumber and more gullible than others. The characters in the film actually did sort of represent the spectrum from skeptical/independent to gullible/obedient. That's what I tried to describe above. It just so happened that the more gullible/obedient people were in positions of authority as things played out. (Another sociopolitical message slipped in there.)

modage

I liked this a lot too though its one of those disturbing films you really only ever want to watch once. I interviewed the director too. Read it!

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/bamcinemafest-craig-zobel-talks-controversial-compliance-20120628
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

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this film was very impressive with its minimalism which i didnt realize until later.
i think the interview helped that. i bought everything until the dude getting sexual with the girl.
at that point i felt it was getting a little incredible but when it was done and upon rewatching it
felt unnoticable. the  long car ride shot near the end was gorgeous. the muted grey and green color scheme throughout was pretty awesome as well.

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recommend to all!

Jeremy Blackman

Burger King employees smash windows following prank call

Video report at this link: http://www.kare11.com/mb/news/burger-king-employees-smash-windows-following-prank-call/127323848

COON RAPIDS, Minn. -- Police say employees at a Coon Rapids Burger King smashed the restaurant's windows following a prank call.

The incident happened Friday evening at the Burger King on the 2000 block of Northdale Boulevard.

Authorities say someone claiming to be from the Coon Rapids Fire Department called the restaurant and said the building was pressurized and would explode unless employees broke the windows to relieve the pressure.

Police say employees broke several of the restaurant's windows. One employee suffered a minor cut while breaking the windows. No other injuries were reported.

Police say similar pranks have taken place in Oklahoma and California.

The Coon Rapids Police and Fire Department say they would never call a residence or business to ask them to take action of any kind. They say if you do receive such a call, consider it a prank and call 911 immediately.

The Coon Rapids Police and Fire Departments are investigating the incident.


https://youtu.be/RRJBs3pjF90