Movie Review

"Best in Show", the dark comedy about the dog owners of the prestigious Kennel Club, humbles any the view of the elite by revealing the foolish, mundane, and ordinary lives of those within esteemed group. As I examined the movie's mechanical characteristics, I realized it was the truth of the composition to the documentary parody that was a key component in my appreciation of the film. Like a true documentary, the film encompassed such techniques as an alternating dolly from speaker to speaker, usually those being interviewed. Tilt is less commonly used, as it is more superfluous and less straight forward as the style of documentaries, but is employed most obviously to capture irony. Alternatively, pan was mostly used to capture more serious movements, like the owner walking with their dog across the kennel club stage. There are very few "mechanical" techniques, because it makes little sense for a film supposedly on a low budget -also with the pure truth in mind- to distort reality in that manner. Zoom and Pull focus was also used to capture a great deal of irony, and fit easily with the aesthetic of the low-budget film for the certain quality for the focus. Transitions were mostly just sharp shifts from scene to scene, no fade or anything smooth. Obviously, a documentary shouldn't have any form of video editing done to it, as to stick with the purity of the original capture. There is no montage, because that would discredit the truth of events. Mostly, the film tries to stay relatively "close up" in order to focus on the unique individuality of each character.