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May 9, 2023
May 20, 2023
About "Search: WWW (2019)":
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On this reviewing I'm impressed by the style of direction
used for the first half or so of the opening episode--
and now I'm wondering at what point the visuals change-- There's no
there's a style of close-up, shot from a little distance hard transition
away, but with a very shallow field of focus, away from this
look, it comes
A typical shot: a woman sitting at her desk, viewed back occasion-
from the front, just below the level of the desk, ally.
looking past some items set up on the edge of the
desk. The edge of the desk and the things on it At the end of
are all blured, as is the window blinds in the the second
background. Her face floats in a strange world episode there's
without hard eges. a three-way
face off, and
for each side
of the triangle,
the camera looks
along the edge
with first one
corner in focus,
I'm also impressed with how *tight* the writing then the other.
is, every thing ties together really tightly.
When she's testifying before Congress, she leads Throughout, in the
up to the phrase "That, is the Internet", and dramatic scenes the
what she's doing is quoting the Congressman camera gets in a
she's talking to, he's used that line before little closer than
when arguing with her privately. She takes him typical, canted at
down with evidence that he was soliciting an angle... with
underage girls some years ago, and that's not some of the unsteady
*entirely* a distraction ploy, though she hand-held look
doesn't tie it up explicitly: she's made an that's commonly used
accusation, now people are searching on the to indicate
subject, and it shows up in the list of popular tumultous emotions
keywords. Should they go with an in kdrama.
innocent-until-proven-guilty logic, and delete
these keywords, or should they reason the Yes: this director's
Congressman is a public figure that people have style, on this
a right to know about? If they decide to shield project at least,
him on the theory he *might* be innocent, then involves manipulating
they're doing pretty much what the Congressman the focal field,
is complaining about, when her boss (for what he reuses these
really were sleazy political reasons) deleted tricks repeatedly,
references to a Presidential candidates e.g. showing you two
adultery. things, and clicking
from one to the other
Then there's the fact that in her own personal by suddenly moving
life, *she's* getting involved with a younger guy the focus.
in spite of herself: when she asks him "How old
are you?" he responds "I'm not under-age." And that trick of
framing a face with
Even the accidental re-meeting, where just by an out-of-focus
chance the guy she regards as an embarassing foreground and
druken one-night has shown up at her workplace-- background-- isn't
even that doesn't feel like a stretch. They're that used
in the same industy, they met playing a computer partiuclarly with
game in a cafe-- a likely obsession of people in that *one*
the computer biz, and the fact that it all character-- a woman
happens in the *first* episode makes it feel who's become
like the premise of the story. unmoored, who lost
contact with her
ideals and dreams and
is so compromised she
fantatsizes about
just disappearing...
Tom wrote (Jan 01 2023):
"... the camera work was very frustrating. The
blurring around the edges and using obstructions
to block part of the scene. I believe the
director wanted some sort of award, but it just
made watching the series very difficult and
(again) frustrating at least for me."
It's true that you sometimes see creators trying
to be fancy and show off when they'd be better
off just playing it straight and doing the
obvious thing in the obvious way.
But I feel exactly the opposite about this
particular case: the unusual direction wasn't
particularly intruisive, and when I did start
paying attention to the tricks, the tricks made
a lot of sense to me.
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