It'd be easy to accuse Cloverfield of leaving
too many questions unanswered, but in truth it tells a very complete story -
just not the one about a rampaging monster.
Astutely, the writers have chosen to concentrate on real characters, the ground
level participants of a terrifying disaster, to saturate their movie with the
kind of credibility rarely seen in this genre. Watching Cloverfield, it
suddenly occurs that every prior monster movie ignores the ruined life of the
man on the street, and in doing so they disassociate themselves with the
audience - becoming intangible flights of fantasy.
By observing the everyday dilemmas of the characters before the city is torn
apart by a vast and unnameable menace we see how our lives might be affected in
such a situation. The excitement immediately dissolves into desperate terror,
and it's clear from the outset that life would never be the same afterwards.
Cloverfield refuses, defiantly, to glamorise the army and the experts - leaving a precise amount of mystery surrounding the attacking menace, granting only
deliciously tantalising glimpses. No tedious explanations of scientific
experimentation gone awry, environmental negligence or unscrupulous military greed. Just as a good zombies film isn't actually the zombies, to draw a worthy comparison, Cloverfield doesn't make the mistake of letting the monster take over the show.
That's not to say it doesn't make mistakes. While some people will find
Matt Reeves' experimental direction of Cloverfield intriguing, the
trade off between plain, old fashioned clarity and film student-esque
grandstanding is simply too costly. Viewed entirely through the
jarring, tunnel-eyed camcorder of one of our superbly developed
characters, not a moment goes by when viewers aren't forced to take a
long blink to try and clear their hampered vision. Staring at the
actor's knees and toecaps when there's so much terrific action going on
off-screen is a whole new experience in cinematic frustration.
Forcing the otherwise riveted
audience to endure the nauseating, amateurish camera work (whether by
design or bad management) for the sake of the director's
self-satisfying artistic bent results in a shameless ruination of great
work. It also makes Cloverfield a one time viewing; leaving viewers
knowing a great story has just been told, but feeling like they only
overheard parts of it in a crowded nightclub.
If we could see it remade,
with proper camera work and a director with more on his mind than
pleasing (or, I suspect, attempting to prove) himself, Cloverfield
could save a movie genre dogged by formulaic triteness. It's hard to
recommend such an oppressive viewing experience, however - regardless of
the magnificent story at its core.
Film Industry 