The document reviews and summarizes two films screened at the AFI Fest: Pulsar and Hamill. Pulsar is described as a boring Belgian love story about technological paranoia that fails to resolve any of its plotlines. Hamill tells the true story of deaf MMA fighter Matt Hamill and is praised for its unique perspective conveyed through creative use of subtitles and sound design, as well as Russell Harvard's performance in the title role.

1. AFI Fest Movie Reviews: ‘Pulsar’ and ‘Hamill’ | /Film 7/24/11 5:45 PM
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Film festivals are about three things. First is seeing huge, buzzed about films that no
one has seen yet. Second is about discovering movies no one has heard of yet. And the
third is seeing films no one will ever see again. After three days at the AFI Fest in
Hollywood, CA, I’d hit one film in each category. The big film was Oscar contender The
King’s Speech (read our review here), the discovery was the inspiring true life story of a
deaf mixed martial artist called Hamill (pictured above) and the film no one will ever see
is called Pulsar, a boring Belgian love story mixed with technological paranoia. Read
reviews of the latter two films after the jump.
Pulsar, directed by Alex Stockman, features Belgian movie star Matthias Schoenaerts
as Samuel, who is trying to maintain a long distance long distance relationship with his
girlfriend, Mireille, who is in New York. They text, e-mail, Skype and one day, Samuel’s
wireless seems to get hacked. Paranoia sets in as he does everything he can to figure out
how and why he’s being targeted and it begins to negatively affect his relationship.
Upcoming Movies Stockman, who also wrote the film, has some strong ideas here – mainly about how we
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides are so willing to send important information about our lives out into the air – but he can’t
quite bring everything together. The film is detrimentally slow and while it leads the
Transformers: Dark of the Moon audience to believe we’ll be let in on some kind of grand conspiracy, it never materializes.
Instead we’re left watching scene after scene of red herrings and symbolism until, finally,
Thor the film literally just ends without wrapping anything up. There are certainly ways an
audience can read Pulsar but without any kind of hints as to where to start, it was
The Dark Knight Rises
supremely frustrating.
Captain America: The First Avenger
The Avengers
X-Men: First Class
Cowboys & Aliens
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2. AFI Fest Movie Reviews: ‘Pulsar’ and ‘Hamill’ | /Film 7/24/11 5:45 PM
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writers Eben Kostbar and Joseph McKelheer, Hamill does feel a little rough around the
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edges. It drags a bit in the middle and the inevitable climax doesn’t pop as much as you’d
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expect, but those are just two minor gripes in an otherwise solid package. One really
interesting thing the film does is vary the use of subtitles. Since the film stars a mostly
deaf cast, and will presumably be marketed to deaf people, the whole thing needed to be
Commenting Rules: Keep the conversation
subtitled in the first place. Then, large sections of the film are just in sign language, so
civil and on topic. If your comment does not
people who can hear need subtitles for that. Finally, there are scenes where the subtitles
add to the conversation, it will be removed.
are missing words (which is sort of ____ like ____), confusing the audience as if they too
Debate intelligently. Insulting the author, /Film,
were deaf. Add that to some superior sound design and the film does an admirable job of
or other commenters will result in comment
making the audience sympathize with Hamill’s situation on a physical level as well as an
removal and possible ban. If you want to point
emotional one.
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A lot of that connection also has to do with the lead performance by Russell Harvard,
your name or nickname and not your business
who played the adult version of H.W. Plainview in There Will Be Blood. He’s simply perfect
name (ie Discount Car Parts) as we might
in the role. A deaf actor himself, he’s a physical presence while also being very
confuse and mark it as spam. If you would like
sympathetic and relatable. He’s the glue in a film that’s provides a unique take on a
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About the Author
Germain graduated NYU's Tisch School of the Arts Cinema Studies
program in 2002 and won back to back First Place awards for film
criticism from the New York State Associated Press in 2006 and
2007.
.
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3. AFI Fest Movie Reviews: ‘Pulsar’ and ‘Hamill’ | /Film 7/24/11 5:45 PM
Fighter’ True Story, Alex
The 25 DVDs Barack Obama Gave Prime Minister Gordon Stockman, american
Brown film institute, Hamill,
Matthias Schoenaerts,
Oren Kaplan, Pulsar,
Russell Harvard
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