PVC-1 | DVD Review

When it premiered at Cannes in 2007, first-time Colombian-by-way-of-Greece director Spiros Stathoulopoulos’ PVC-1 came out of nowhere to impress the audience and the jury to the point of winning the Award of the City of Rome. What’s so special about it, you might ask? Aside from the fact that it’s a pretty decent thriller told in real time, its main hook is that its full 85-minute running time is one continuous shot, with no cuts and no editing. Innovative? Yes, but whether the technique adds to or detracts from the story is another question, a question whose answer is not as black and white as one might think.

Based on an actual incident, PVC-1 begins with a group of masked criminals infiltrating a family’s home demanding 15 million pesos. When the father assures them he has no money, they attach a PVC collar-bomb to the mother’s neck, telling the family that they have very little time to come up with the money or they will detonate the bomb remotely. What follows is a harrowing ordeal as the mother (an excellent Merida Urquia) and her family scramble to meet up with a task force that will try to defuse the bomb. Urquia’s performance is spot-on; her panic when the bomb intermittently chirps out an alarm is palpable, as is the rest of the family’s reactions. The real time aspect of the film ensures that the audience can’t take their eyes off the screen for even a moment, lest we miss an important development.

Choreographing PVC-1, which is essentially a multiple-location one-act play on film, must have been a huge undertaking for Stathoulopoulos, who also wrote the screenplay, produced, and strapped on the steadicam to film it himself. Imagine having to cue the actors and crew (was there a crew?) at the next setting to be ready, all while traipsing through bushes and across brooks and filming the scene as it unfolds. But as monumental a technical achievement as PVC-1 is, it ultimately serves to distract the viewer from the actual plot of the film, which is actually a pretty intense and gripping thriller. It’s hard to focus on the story if in the back of your mind you’re constantly thinking about the way it was filmed. Perhaps it is a film best watched twice: once for the story and performances, and once so you can enjoy the way in which it was made.

What kind of bonus features can you have for what is essentially an 85-minute single shot? There are obviously no deleted or alternate scenes…there’s just the one scene done with one camera in a single shot; no editing or no cutting. There can also be no making-of featurette, as one can imagine any camera crew on set other than the director himself would just get in the way and have a hard time staying out of camera range. A commentary track from Stathoulopoulos would have been interesting, but unfortunately we have to settle for just the film itself.

Many engrossing films throughout history have succeeded while treading similar ground, most notably Hitchcock’s Rope, which was a series of long single shots lasting one reel each, and Mike Figgis’ Time Code, which told several real time stories at once in four quadrants on the screen. Does PVC-1 aucceed at telling a great story while being groundbreaking? Watching PVC-1, you may find yourself marveling at how cool it is instead of wondering how this lady will get out of her predicament, if at all. Which is too bad, really, because it is a solid story with strong performances, especially given the unique way in which it was made. And that, my friends, brings us full circle.

Movie rating – 3

Disc Rating – 3