Fresh Kill

Fresh Kill is an intelligent and ambitious film made with 90s indie movie aesthetics and budget. There’s a lot to respect about it. Though it can be a case of too many good ideas. Fresh Kill doesn’t quite manage to marry its political and philosophical observations with its fictive narrative.

The film is set in a near-future that some summaries describe as post-apocalyptic. Honestly, it seems pretty close to regular life in present day but with slightly more garbage. The garbage is important. The universe of the film deals with a shady government and a ghost ship full of toxic waste looking for a place to dock. Within this world, we find lesbian couple, Shareen and Claire. Initially, neither are really involved in the conspiracy elements of the surrounding world. But after their daughter, Honey goes missing, Claire and Shareen begin wandering closer to this broad conspiracy, which goes right to the top. But of course, it’s those at the bottom doing the work to reveal and fight this conspiracy.

Fresh Kill is very smart. Perhaps too smart for me. Director Shu Lea Cheang has a lot to say and know exactly how she wants to say it. In addition to telling a story and competently directing it, Fresh Kill says stuff about society, man. Her predictions and depictions of a world where wealth inequality run rampant, garbage becomes a huge international issue and the government downplays these issues using media control are if anything, a little too prescient. This is an incredibly dense 80 minute film. The amount of story put into every small character and set choice is impressive. And it comes together to tell a story of a universe much larger than the snapshot we get in Fresh Kill.

The downside of a movie this ambitious and this dense is that it can feel unfocused. The commentary and observations of the film’s broader universe and the personal story about Shareen and Claire don’t always gel. It felt like just as I was getting invested in one, the film would switch focus to the other aspect. Rarely did it feel like Fresh Kill managed to perfectly integrate the personal narrative and broader political observations. Personally, I would’ve preferred the film went harder into the political angle. Maybe going full ensemble cast to to depict a larger subsection of this universe. Claire and Shareen as leads allow for a lot of diversity and insight into the world. But an even larger cast or a commitment to this film being an ensemble film would’ve helped. There’s just not enough time in this movie to do everything, despite how hard Cheang tried.

Fresh Kill is overall clearly the work of a very intelligent and creative person. This one of those movies where my biggest critique is that I wanted more. The universe the film crafts is one that could support a lengthy ongoing series of some sort. Getting only 80 minutes of it felt like a tease. Plus, those 80 minutes were perhaps a little overstuffed to always get across the point the film is making.

Overall rating: 5.8/10

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