Two important aspects have made it possible to tell a story like Look using surveillance gear (or as with Alone with Her and My Little Eye, cameras placed in positions where surveillance footage would be recorded): technological advancements, and our acceptance of mixed media footage that spans high-end HD camera to crappy 3/4” security tape simulations.

As writer/director Adam Rifkin explains in the excellent commentary on Anchor Bay's DVD, efforts were made to use low-tech gear, but the filmmaker found the best solution was to use top of the line HD Sony cameras in real locations, and do a combo of dumbing down the footage (sometimes by simply duping the material on tape) and using good old Adobe Photoshop. That aim for authenticity while sticking to the demands of a commercial grade film clicked, but the real reason Look works so well – particularly when viewed a second time – is the clever focus on seemingly disparate characters in a sunny California suburb who affect each others' lives.

The cause and effect scenarios are very similar to Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), P.T. Anderson's Magnolia (1999), and Paul Haggis' Crash (2004), except Look delivers the intrigue, drama, comedy, and horror within a roughly ninety minute running time, and isn't trying to be grand socially relevant (or pretentious) art.

Rifkin's background is mostly comedies (Home Erectus, Detroit Rock City) and action comedies (The Chase), so it is surprising that Look goes beyond technological innovation and works so well. Mike Figgis' attempt to blend technology with drama in Timecode (2000) was an exceptionally dull exercise in Hollywood satire and melodrama, and the use of four ongoing camera feeds and a split screen gimmick was more distracting than engaging because most of the time what one saw was an actor just sitting there, and looking really bored.

Rifkin's approach – and indeed his actual premise – was to treat the film as a director's edit of 'found footage' wherein roughly the five most intriguing character streams were edited into a flowing narrative; the only conceit is the fact we can hear what everyone's saying quite clearly, and we can see things that would have alerted some security guard into calling the police or a supervisor.

The way we're eased into the film's format and the technology is (unsurprisingly) through humour – namely embarrassing moments (breaking wind in an elevator) or the initially provocative intro of two girls in a changing room discussing a bleaching procedure that's the rage at school.

School, in the case of the girls, is high school, and one girl's determination to screw her teacher is the first of several storylines that turns dark and serious, and the transition from goofy to horrible is proficiently handled by Rifkin through a tight editing of story streams as well as shot and scene transitions that aren't jarring or arty; one always feels as though one has stumbled upon some strange hidden camera anthology, and wrong as it is to enjoy the voyeurism, it's just hard to look away.

Look, though, isn't wholly about our need to watch other peoples' private moments; it's about generally banal human behaviour that, when cut down to essentials, forms a real-life (and engaging) drama, so while Rifkin chooses to focus on a handful of characters (often involved in or discussing sexual escapades), there's a convergence that pays off with a few twists. Not everything is resolved, but that also works for the film, and the director's instincts are in top form: the dialogue is naturalistic yet concise, the performances are equally loose but believable, and the subtle filmic touches – namely score and sound design – don't destroy the illusion of this compact reality drama.

Much like Cruel but Necessary (2005), Look is a product of the kind of filmed behaviour we're accustomed to seeing on TV and home video, and it's refreshing to see a narrative that isn't reliant on horror genre conventions; any shocks are based on social horrors, and certainly the film's most terrifying stream involves a child molester who follows a mother and daughter around a large mall with steady patience.

The blandness of seeing the stalker's blue hat evolves from a motif to an element of dread, because we know when that figure drifts onscreen, he's getting closer to achieving his goal of snatching and destroying an innocent life. We only see the hunt in all of its banality, but it's enough to unsettle and ultimately horrify.

To counter-balance the film's three dark streams – a child molester, a teen vixen, and a pair of serial killers – there's a department store supervisor with a perpetual hard-on for his female co-workers, as well as a gas station clerk/wannabe songwriter and his bonehead pal who work a long and sanity-trying night shift. The singer is played by Giuseppe Andrews (star of Rifkin's Detroit Rock City), who also composed a few songs, including a thing called “Electrocuted,” which ranks as one of the best worst songs ever written for a film. Intentional or not, the quality of the songs as well as their integration into later montages (another filmic conceit) improves and becomes more dramatic and meaningful, although it is amusing to hear the songs goosed up for the end credits by composer BT, particularly “Electrocuted” with full dance electronica.

Anchor Bay's DVD includes a lengthy deleted scene gallery (including an alternate ending, as well as Ron Jeremy's deleted cameo), a lively and informative commentary tack with the director, co-star/hard-on stud Hayes MacArthur, and producers Brad Wyman and Bary Schuler, and a making-of featurette that puts Rifkin in the camera's cross hair from the pitch meeting with producers to the final sequence on a closed freeway.

The last notable is a set of outtakes mostly focusing on Rifkin trying to direct the actors in live locations, and a long test reel of Rifkin being the sole passenger in a bus in a drive with a positioned surveillance camera, and the driver who remains professional when Rifkin runs up and down the bus like a stellar buffoon.

A funnny but ultimately unsettling slice of big city suburban life from disrespective cameras, and a genuinely hypnotic exprience.

© 2009 Mark R. Hasan