Zenith (2010)

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

I find it interesting how some reviews are full of rage and others full of praise. A great work usually does that. Love or hate it, it arouses passion. Time will tell but Zenith does push many buttons. Bottom line, if you like films only as entertainment don't watch The film. If you have an open mind and want something different see it. A dark futuristic thriller on no budget, the film occasionally overreaches but it's fascinating, beautiful to look at and the score is amazing. It's a heady movie but not preachy. The film is our allegory. Like Magritte's 'False Mirror' it looks inside out and outside in. If you agree to this premise you will enjoy the ride and contemplate its ending long after. If not, the film will fall flat as 'realistic dramatic construction' in three acts without closure. But I don't think it was meant to be that. We are living the future and with every day Zenith becomes more real. The film was not shot there but the desolate landscapes look eerily like Detroit.

Yet another case of misleading reviews. You are teased with terms like brain candy... well, like a candy, it certainly doesn't feed. Alas it doesn't even taste good. The container is as bad as the content.Content first: Constant pontification on subjects that you will find provoking only if you were born after 2012. When the first sentence begins with "Fact:...", you instantly realise that you'll be listening to a condescending moron who thinks he will teach you something. I'm not referring to the character. Then he badly explains the Milgram Experiment, a ground-breaker, in the 1960s, and you start to think that maybe you should re-watch Verneuil's I as in Icarus, a great movie that one.Don't go thinking that I'm bashing on the sole basis of the introduction. All along, you'll get hammered coprolitic gems like "who are you to judge if you haven't produced anything ?" (let's ask Cioran about that), "I know words no one else knows anymore" (well, we all know people who can speak 6 languages fluently but have nothing interesting to say), a USA-Great Britain one-world government (and Australia once again forgotten in that definition of global), "Pain makes them feel alive", etc. Nobody in the film crew has even realised, or dared to mention, how dumb the idea of paying for a pain-inducing drug is.Zenith exemplifies a contemporary trend in which any brain fart can find an echo on the Internet and be proclaimed as an idea.Container: To try to keep watching Zenith despite its early ineptitude is a true ordeal. First, the acting is atrocious. Not raw... bad. Absolutely all of it. Unbelievably incompetent. Strangely, all the actors are physically perfect for their respective parts, but none of them has any mike skill. Put the narrator on top of it for new levels of annoyance.The camera work is of the same calibre. In every single scene, the camera is set at the worst possible place, or on a shoulder, or is a cctv sensor... It hopelessly tries to be arty, with zero flair. The lighting is equally awful, and so on. A sex scene is ugly, which is an unforgivable crime, repeated twice more. Scenes of violence are over before you realise they started; they have no impact; they are unclear, like everything else.Using the word Independent as an excuse for incompetence is irritating. It is, in fact, an insult to independent cinema. There are masterpieces with the tiniest budgets out there. Watch Man Bites Dog, made by three students with no money (not even a university grant) using all their family members for a free cast. Brilliant. Because they have talent, unlike Mr Nikotic. Wait, I take that back: I don't need a masterpiece as an example; just watch a good independent movie, or an okay one, but don't bother watching the abysmal Zenith.

Before I even get into the review of this movie I want to point out one crucial thing, this is NOT just a movie, this is what several people on the inter-webs calls an "alternate reality game" ultimately involving people who watch the film, listen to the album or read the book. Great example is Nine Inch Nails album "Year Zero".Now let us get into the meat of this beefy film, a few reviews below me had to have been done by someone who is involved with Fred Phelps,maybe they decided to watch it with family, and then there is the possibility this person hasn't seen an indie movie in his entire life.This movie follows very close with the styles of Fight Club, with the narration, and such events that I will not disclose for your sake.This movie/mockumentary will start out kind of confusing but it wants you to hang in there because not only are the following hour and twenty minutes worth it, but are crucial for you to get ANY grasp on this film. Without partaking in the ARG. The camera styles used are just as you would expect on a low budget film, but it doesn't ruin or take away from the film at all.The acting is far from sub-par, but very well for relatively unknown actors and actresses, with slips here and there but its easily over looked. Sets looked as though this dystopian 2044 would be possible.But the end, I didn't quite get it, its not as out there cause they're really is no end at the end of the movie, it is open for YOU the viewer to help Jack out, find out the true end of everything.But to say that they used the "F bomb" too much is BS, I have seen holly wood movies use it more, it sillier ways than this movie did, and to say that the "love" scenes were anything less than a standard holly wood "sex" scene is ludicrous, maybe if it was Channing Tatum and Katy Perry it wouldn't be as bad, or maybe if they played some John Mayer while it was going on, its crazy to say it was over used over played, it set the movie with a different feel.And yes there may or may not be a "rape" scene, but you decide, and tell me what you think. Also note they're MAY be an abortion scene... MAYBE you can help me out with that, maybe you have the 4:3 version that I could borrow to see more.Just trying to state the obvious, this movie is at its best a mind bending twist of crazy, and at its worst... a mind bending twist of crazy, its no Serbian Film...there is very little that hinder this movie from being a top movie in 2010, or even being viewed once by all who have netflix.If you don't watch this you are missing out.

I had the opportunity to see ZENITH at the IFC THEATER in NYC.The movie was in summary at least 100 times better than INCEPTION. This is a statement for the quality of this independent film which was much less money to make than INCEPTION. The story was imaginative and associated with current society. The artistry in th...e acting and directing was quite evident. The acting was raw..and the story was up your face, and the directing and cinematography was genius. Each scene seemed like a painting which could be worth thousands in the art world. It was quite interesting to see at a moment breaking the fourth wall. This movie was provocative, thought stimulating, and a roller-coaster of goodies to see : A MASTERPIECE OF INDEPENDENT FILMMAKING ..WHICH I PREDICT WILL BECOME AN INDEPENDENT FILM CULT CLASSIC... Get some sleep before you go see this,... you will need all your brain cells so as to not miss one second of it. Hope to see it in big theaters real soon.