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JULIA WEPT
Produced by P.J. Lown, Dennis Smart, and Kathleen Campeau
Written and Directed by Jason Paul Collum
Edited by Jav Rivera
Directors of Photography - Jason Paul Collum and tom DooleyJulia - Julie King
Kathryn - Brinke Stevens
Scott - Jason SechrestJason Paul Collum's JULIA WEPT is about intersecting lines; how one person can have an affect on another and vise versa. I don't mean that it's a movie filled with the warm and fuzzies, or about personal empowerment through others, or some such nonsense. JULIA WEPT is about pain and torment, and how one comes to deal with everlasting suffering.
Julia is a young woman still feeling guilty after having her comatose sister's life support turned off only weeks before. The sad irony in that she's suffering after having ended someone else's. If you help someone find peace at the sacrifice your own, you have to wonder if the ordeal was worth the trouble. But in the end, time will eventually erase Julia's torment, replacing it with the day to day satisfaction found in life. Eventually, this will help her realize that she did the right thing.
On the way to school, Julia's life crashes front-end first into Kathryn and Scott, a family trying to start their day of middle class existence. Neither expected the accident, or the results. But their lives are changed dramatically and forever.
JULIA WEPT covers the same thematic ground as Ramzi Abed's THE TUNNEL. Both films deal with life in Purgatory, that transitional plain between heaven and hell our souls reside in while waiting for acceptance at one of the other locations. The difference being that Collum's work is far less cryptic and experimental.
It's not Kathryn and Scott that we follow in Purgatory, it's Julia. Maybe she didn't do the right thing by taking her sister off life support. Maybe God doesn't believe in a right to die, and Julia is finding this out weeks too late.
We follow's Julia's trip of mundane discovery as she wanders through familiar surroundings where everything is slightly off. She has no view from her suburban home. Her kitchen drawers are empty of silverware. Her cable tv doesn't work. Slowly, the thought of what might have happened creeps into mind.
Collum tells the story slowly, opting for a sense of dread and unease rather than the conventional chills and scares of a horror film. Filled with an eerie atmosphere of murky shadows and dark corridors, JULIA WEPT produces goosebumbs rather than gasps. I applaud any movie that gives priorities to its characters psychological state, even at the sacrifice of elements such as plot. Plot might be your story, but the characters are what sell your story. Even with a lack thereof, interesting characters can be fun to watch.
JULIA WEPT is a slow moving piece that goes contrary to this Michael Bay era of filmmaking. Those with short attention spans probably should not spend the effort, they'll only grow board. The rest of will stay assured that true indi-cinema still thrives.