Starring Gunner Wright
Written & Directed by William Eubank
With the Toronto After Dark Film Festival that ran from Oct 20-27 at the Toronto Underground Cinema firmly in the rear view mirror of genre film fans who are already counting down the days to next years festival, it might be time to take an look at one of the highlights from this year’s festival. With his debut feature wowing festival goers across the world, last Sunday writer/director William Eubank brought his “Love” to Toronto.
“Love” brings us to the year 2039 shortly after astronaut Lee Miller (Wright) begins his shift on the International Space Station a terrible apocalyptic event on earth cuts him off from the rest of the human race. As time passes and life support systems dwindle, Lee battles to maintain his sanity - and simply stay alive. His world is a claustrophobic and lonely existence, until he makes a strange discovery aboard the ship; a mysterious journal dating back almost 200 years to the civil war. A life altering secret appears to be in its pages and with little else to live for Miller dedicates himself to discovering the mysteries held within.
Arguably the best film ever shot in someone’s backyard (it was a ranch, but still), “Love” is a highly ambitious film. William Eubank who served as writer/director/cinematographer and production designer on the film seemingly poured his life into the making of this film. While it did bravely try to troll the areas that sci-fi films like '2001: A Space Odyssey', 'Solaris' and 'Moon'; this ambitious and beautiful picture fell slightly short in some areas. Parts of the story got overly abstract at times and the restrictions of budget and the built in necessity of having one actor carry your film drag it down at times, but not to the point that it took away from the overall experience. Listed as a producer on the film; the band 'Angels & Airwaves' also created a haunting and grandiose score for the film and when that was added to Eubanks obvious skill behind the camera the experience of “Love” felt grander than it probably should have been, as it is a great example of talent rising above any financial limitations.
Our star Gunner Wright was effective in the role as astronaut Captain Lee Miller, but the kinetic nature of the story with use of various flashbacks/sideways/forwards made it a little hard to get a full character performance from him, as the film was more about the experience then it was about the actors.
“Love” is essentially an art project in conjunction with the band 'Angels & Airwaves' and their double album Love Pt 1 & 2, you can check there site right here for more details. However as a film unto itself “Love” is announcing to the world that William Eubank is an up & coming talent that deserves to be taken seriously and for his first feature he has done a great deal more right than he has done wrong. I’d be curious what he can do one day with a real budget.
4 out of 5 stars.
“Love” exclusive bundles that include both CD’s of the soundtrack, the DVD, a graphic novel and T-Shirt are available for pre-order right now at AVAshop.com, and it will be available for purchase on Tuesday Nov. 8 at all major online retailers and record stores as just the film with the soundtrack like amazon.ca.
To learn more about the Toronto After Dark film festival and all the films that played during this year's edition from Oct 20-27 at the Toronto Underground Cinema, you can visit their site right here.
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