VIFF 2020: Events Transpiring Before, During, and After a High School Basketball Game
VIFFTed Stenson's Events Transpiring Before, During, and After a High School Basketball Game is a wonderfully intimate and gleefully brooding pot of a character study.
Following three storylines that intertwine with the titular narrative offers a grand and expressional tale of teenage angst layered in a thematic weight both credible and engaging in its poignant and evocative measurement, regarding the merits of existentialism as well as purpose. This thematic weight gives precedent for the performances and, ultimately, characters to brood.
Stenson's film, on the surface, feels one-note in its farcical exploration of youth and as a comedic entity. Yet, it has a poignant and strongly layered underbelly of the weight of expectation – if that be a conversation on the moral value of existentialism, political/social conformity or on one's acceptance of body and mind. Granted, these are elements that are consciously present but intertwined into a comedic embodiment and contextually appropriateness of being set in a high school.
At a tight and minuscular 76-minutes, Stenson's feature is paced and edited to perfection. It is a slowly crafted feature that, of course, broods away but is never overly sluggish or tiresome. Each sequence has a point of interest that reinforces character depth and development. Equally as impressive is the cinematography from Guillaume Carlier, who incorporates and strengthens the slow, systematic approach with a sizable amount of long shots that maintain a dear amount of connection between image and audience but also makes the viewer feel like a bystander.
All in all, while Events Transpiring Before, During, and After a High School Basketball Game won't be a film for all audiences, it is quite a niche feature with little that occurs in what many will feel as substance. Nevertheless, it is a brooding portrait of 1990s High School, and the depths of angst are wonderfully produced and wonderfully performed.
