Friday night was the official Philadelphia premiere of Portraits of Sari, a new film directed by University of the Arts student Dan Magro. Apparently, some college students find the time to produce feature length films in their spare time. Cue feelings of inadequecy. To boot, the budget of Magro's film was only $5000 dollars, and you would never know it with the results.Portraits premiered the film to a full house at Gershwinn Hall on the Avenue of the Arts. Portraits of Sari is a coming of age / romantic comedy about students in their first year of art school. The main character, Steven, has an overinvolved mother who inflates his ego and pushes him to succeed at painting. She sets her sights on the university's highly competetive art competition for her son. But Steven's main competetion is Sari, a beuatiful and talented scholarship student. As you can imagine, they butt heads, but sparks also fly. Steven must decide if he will succumb to his mother's proddings or follow his own desires.
The actors (most with limited experience) performed with mixed results. Susan Hoare was appropriately formidable as Steven's mother, and Aleks Krutainis garnered laughs as Steven's flamboyant roommate. Some of the supporting actors, however, were a bit over the top. In the lead, Ryan Windish made for wonderful eye candy, but his acting fell flat. Kristen Hermes as Sari, too, seemed unnatural at moments.
One of the significant hitches in the films was the writing. The scipt seemed torn between a traditional romantic comedy and an absurdist look at art school life. Since the writing did not commit to either, the film was left in a strange limbo. I personally would have preferred a full-on satire of art school, because those were the moments when the film was strongest.
Portraits' greateast strength was the way it was filmed. Magro used very creative camera angles, especially during the yoga class scenes. The settings, too, were lovely. Perhaps my favorite part of the film was the opening credits, which were very unique and entertaining. Magro's love for film truely came across in his unique filming style.
All in all, the contributers to Portraits of Sari should be proud of themselves. They used limited resources to create an impressive feature length film. And you can be sure we'll be hearing much more from Magro in the future. To check out the trailor visit http://www.portraitsfilm.com/.
