"bubble"
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 10:03PM 
Another experiment from Steven Soderbergh, a man who will seemingly try anything. My initial reaction to this low budget feature shot on HD video for a reported $1.6 million was that it is Soderburg's entry in the Dogme 95 category: a non professional cast, no lighting other than what is available on location, no music other than some driving acoustic guitar, direction, camera, and editing by the same individual: Soderbergh.
The film doesn't strictly adhere to the Dogme 95 rules, but it's obviously an attempt to create a work of immediacy that doesn't rely on the artifice of the huge Hollywood machine that Soderbergh wields remarkably well.
Set in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the story revolves around a woman Martha whose life is spent caring for her ailing father and working at the local doll factory. Her "best friend" is a young man who also works at the factory. There are multiple scenes of them working and eating lunch in the break room. Bubble is one of the few American fictional films ever to truly give an accurate depiction of what factory work is like, the crushing repetition, the poverty of emotion and expectation, to be relieved only by the consumption of globs of greasy fast food washed down with 32 oz. soft drinks.
Small in all ways, Bubble has only a modicum of surface emotion revealed by the non professional actors playing themselves. But the scarcity of expectation creates a blank slate on which to project the undercurrents of jealousy, betrayal, and ultimately murder.
world cinema
Reader Comments (2)
I was so taken with this film when I saw it back in 2006, that I setup a camera to take screenshots of some of the long estabilishing shots. If you're on a Soderbergh kick, check out his weirdest, most wonderful low budget film in which he stars in dual roles: Schizopolis.
Cheers,
Joe
Joe,
Thanks for weighing in, I was wondering what you thought of Bubble. I think Soderbergh totally gets the Landscapist aesthetic. I'd like to see him do a film with even less story than this one has, that used more of the outside world at large. Did you happen to see this one when it was released on HDNet?
I've still got Schizopolis and The Good German to get through to catch up on my Soderbergh viewing.