Directed By Michael Maren. DP was Nancy Schreiber.
I'm not sure the title makes sense. Is the story taking place as flashback? Why is this the 'history' of decay? It's more like the continuation of decay. For example, Michael Maren has a sequence of shots early in the film which demonstrate the theme of the movie. Our hero is walking down the hallway of a hospital and watches a slide show of the last days of most people.
I would have like this bit more if they had used the shots to tessellate the screen and create a mosaic of death framed around his Nathan's head. It would have shrunk his position on screen and created a claustrophobic feeling, expressing the fear of death closing in on his family, but also on him. I did love the final shot below of the nurse disinfecting the bed, it's especially callous and chilly.
I have no other way to say it, the editing was atrocious. There were shots which didn't match properly. Many times there were jarring jump cuts which shook you out of the flow of the movie. For example below are two shots which follow back to back.
There's no transition, no indication of time lapse, just a perfect example of a poorly executed jump cut. The worst part is the shot above is the end of a sequence which has no place in the film. It should introduce us to the new character, but I watched it multiple time and there's no significant information which we can gleam from the scene. It has no place in the final cut of this movie.
A nice use of lighting and camera position in the shot below. Nathan is coming home and we can hear the sounds of laughter and music faintly in the background. Combined with the hallway and poor lighting, we get the feeling he is entering a music club rather than his house. It's a well crafted illusion by Maren.
Nathan has a brother, Jack. Jack is a lobbyist. This is all we know of Jack. Nathan spends most of the film degrading Jack's generic position as lobbyist and reminding us lobbyist = bad. So when Jack shows up I was not surprised at all he had lost his job, it was unintentionally foreshadowed since it was all we knew about him. His job and subsequent loss was a shortcut to character depth. But we can't even feel anything for Jack since they spent the film telling us what a leech he is. Hey he cheats on his wife? Not shocking at all, he's a lobbyist after all. None of his character revelations have any emotional punch.
Amazingly, the only person more annoying about Jack's job is Nathan. Nathan tries to prove what an honest and forthright citizen he is by degrading his brother's job at all turns. Nathan's pretension manages to trump his brother's arrogance.
When Nathan is confessing we get this shot below. Nate is significantly taller than Jack, but they appear to be the same size below. Nate's actions have lowered him to Jack's level.
We again get a long conversation between the two later in the film. Here Schreiber uses framing and position to demonstrate how far apart the brothers are emotionally.
Unfortunately there's a terrible jump cut in here too.
I have more complaints about the depiction of Erika, Jack's girlfriend, but it's not worth it.
These indie dramas keep getting made as if no one is editing the scripts or planning out the film shoot. If these were Corman productions we'd at least have gratuitous sex and violence. Indie film makers, please make your films more interesting to watch. Not Recommended.
