When the Living Gets Better

Thurs.-Sat., Oct. 23-26 at Eliot House

STUDENT FILMS are getting better, a little better all the time. A twenty-seven minute student film used to mean nothing but nine times as many Universal Truths as a three minute student film. Novice filmmakers have always tended to overreach themselves. Josh Waletzky and his cohorts did not, and the result is a film which makes one point rather well, instead of running after every truism which pops up.

A vapid pick-up, a sick-sweet Bailey's sundae, and a frantically joyful party are not subtle devices; but they convey Waletzky's theme--aimlessness and Sunday-afternoon ennui--without themselves being aimless or boring. Sally is the aimless one. She has abandoned her commitment, and though that happens to be an East Cambridge rent project, it could as easily have been politics, creativity, or just another person.

Perhaps it's unfortunate that Waletzky chose social work for his heroine's commitment. This setting enables us to view a nice variety of amateur actors--wrinkled faces against decaying plaster--but leads to a misplaced emphasis. We spend almost the first half of the film watching the situation (rent-strike) rather than the girl who is the film's subject.

Sally Heckel's face blesses the film. Seen straight on in full light she looks somewhat empty and naive, but subtle changes in light and camera angle put emotion on that sympathetic face. In the film's best scene she watches television with a bottle of dead coke and her little half-smile.

The second half of When the Living Gets Better features a sound track which is positively creative, and need not apologize for being only quasi-synchronized. Songs blip for an ugly instant as Sally primps. Two songs run on top of each other in distinct gibberish as she smiles at her date. The soundtrack is used by Waletzky to tell us what the pictures alone only suggest. Near the end, sound pops into sync with the click of a light-switch, grabbing our attention for the brief, affirmative finale.

Technically, Living has all the earmarks of a student film. The camera sometimes wobbles, the lighting is often dubious, and the print grayish-grainy. But Waletzky avoids a fatal student mistake: overasserting himself to make up for lack of confidence.