Skip to main content

Funny & Real - Amir Motlagh's Debut Feature WHALE Does Not Disappoint


Whale Trailer First Feature Film by Amir Motlagh - The best video clips are right here

Just saw Whale - the debut feature by Amir Motlagh - here are some thoughts about it (am not a film critic, and am a fan of Amir's film work - have been for a while since watching the short Still Lover a few years back):

So what's Whale about in a broad sense? It's about young-ish men - dudes pushing 30, right around 30, dealing with unexpected changes (a pregnant girlfriend in one case), yet-unrealized old ambitions (an unfinished novel, a writing career that has yet to materialize despite years of work), and, for one reason or another, still living at mom's house. In a narrow sense Whale is about a late 20's Iranian-American aspiring writer who moves back in with his parents, re-connects with his old friends, & tries to figure out the next chapter of his life. The acting/non-acting is so flawless Whale appears to be a blend between documentary footage and a foreign/art house project. But one good, or bad, depending on how you look at it, thing about Whale is that even though its form will evoke a foreign/art house movie to some people - the characters & the surroundings & their dilemmas are so uniquely & obviously American - seemingly intelligent & relatively well off young people who are intensely troubled by romantic/sexual situations and the search for creative careers & greater meaning in life (both luxuries that are more easily pursued in America than in most countries in the world, as far as I know/can tell). At one point during the movie I thought to myself that this kind of thing must be what most "mumblecore" & other twenty something indie films are after - a direct revelation of their reality/personal experience presented in a way/format that outsiders may be able to connect with - but, whereas most mumblecore movies feel very unrealistic & narrow in the world that they are able to re-create on the screen, Whale feels "more real" (probably due to the fact, for me, the cast is multi-ethnic & from different economic classes & that both those facts are heavily related to how the characters see themselves & how they process their current situation in life), oriented more in the general direction of universality (a lot of dudes, even if they are not arty or whatever, but grew up in America in the 80's & 90's, will probably be able to relate well to Whale), & is funny (here I am thinking about the long discussion regarding the water skiing incident).

I know I am all kinds of biased (not only have I seen & liked most of Amir's movies (specially the earlier shorts, before knock.knock), he is working on my current fiction feature, possibly even acting in it), but, I can very comfortably say that Whale is one of the most exciting & well made indie films I've seen in a while, I'd put it up there with Medicine for Melancholy - both for freshness of voice & technical (video & audio) polish & also for creating an interesting/reflective image of ethnic & economic diversity in America.

For more on Whale, go here.

- Sujewa

Full Movie - SNEAK PREVIEW - Cosmic Disco Detective Rene And The Mystery Of Immortal Time Travelers

NEW - COSMIC DISCO DETECTIVE RENE (2023) - TRAILER!

The Secret Society For Slow Romance (2022) - available to rent as a new release starting January 1

Werewolf Ninja Philosopher at Vimeo VOD

Popular Posts

Godard's GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE - watch and commentary live - off of Metrograph At Home copy of film

Let's take a closer look at Mike Tully's negative review of IFBRT & see if we can clarify some things

Mike Tully (presently inactive filmmaker who is not a fan of shooting on DV, who is now running things - as far as I know - at the review site Hammer to Nail, who also blogs at indieWIRE, & who wrote a brief & positive review of Date Number One in '06, & a fellow Marylander who generally seems like a cool dude) attended the World Premiere of Indie Film Blogger Road Trip and wrote a review of the doc . There are several items in that review that I'd like to comment on. So here we go: "At its best, Sujewa Ekanayake’s Indie Film Blogger Road Trip is certain to go down as one of the more bizarre time capsules of life on early-21st Century Earth." Cool - life on Earth in early 21st century - right now - is pretty bizarre, so a film dealing with a new, early-21st Century thing like film blogging/a film blogging community, should reflect that reality. The doc, however, is very simple & conventional in its form & content (shots of people talking). It is i

This is no way to write a movie review

Cynthia Rockwell's "review" of Hannah Takes The Stairs is depressing not because she didn't like the movie but because after reading the entire thing, 6 small to medium sized paragraphs, I can't figure out the following: the plot of the movie or the situation or roughly what happens for 70 - 90 minutes, the main characters & any significant minor characters, who plays the characters, ideas that may have been expressed in the movie, similar ideas and situations that may have been explored in other movies or other art/entertainment and how those compare with the film being reviewed, the reviewer's opinion of the technical craftsmanship of the movie, how real life compares to the world being depicted in the movie. At the very least I would like to learn a few of those things about a movie from a review. (and yes, Rockwell does consider her post re: Hannah a review, as noted here , not just a blog entry reflecting on the lack of female participation in indie

Reading Material

Indie Film Blogger Road Trip