The Dabbler - A Reid Gershbein Film
Reid Gershbein’s arthouse indie film, The Dabbler, begs the question, “What would you do and what would you care about if everything in the word was suddenly broken?”
Set in a world of economic stress, sexual freedom, unattained goals, The Dabbler gives us a meandering look at the disillusionment that often accompanies life in these United States. It’s cause & effect. Through one character we see self-pitying defensiveness when he’s pressured to identify and commit to his goals. We’re introduced to a woman whose life has more meaning when she’s surrounded and “intimately touched” by complete strangers. And we see a man who’s life has become a ticking time-bomb of stress, so much so that he enlists help from a mysterious magical box for relief.
As I watched the film I honestly felt like I was peering through the window to Reid’s soul. I quickly recognized his laid-back influence as the film takes a very subtle approach in addressing the cataclysmic breaking of the world. In an age where people freak-out at the slightest inconvenience it’s interesting to watch a film where the characters react in almost a ho-hum way to a world with no power, no lights, no electricity, and no Blackberrys. Truthfully, we’re not given much to react to either, as the lack of power is so lightly touched on that it’s barely a subplot. The main story lies with the characters and how having their phones, electricity etc, taken away forces each to confront their own existence.
I had the privilege of watching the film full screen 1280 x 720 and I had to consider that the “shaky cam” might be a bit jarring or simply too much if I were to watch on a smaller screen. That said, the photography is beautiful (as usual) and Reid has chosen charming locations that reek of character and history.
Cheryl Fidelman’s character was the most prolific, intuitive, introspective and even annoying at times. Fortunately I catch on quickly and I carefuuly watched her character grow in the film; growth that reached a climactic crescendo during a spoken word sequence where she proclaims, “…the funniest thing about us is that we think we have all this time… instead of embracing the magic that’s here…right now.“
Whoop! There it is. A call to action to embrace the here and now; to choose to find joy in the present day instead of putting off happiness until you get that new car, new home, new phone, new lover, new job, new life… new you. So lightly touched on I found myself wondering if enough people who watched the film would get it. Then I thought, even if only one or two get it, that’s all a filmmaker could ask for.
The shortest distance between any two points is a straight line…and Reid avoids that straight line like the plague. Instead, he takes us on a journey through conversation, epic landscapes and wandering thoughts. Finding the meaning behind the meaning requires skill, or at the very least, focus. But as the theme of the film suggests, the joy isn’t in reaching the destination, it is in the journey.
The Dabbler is available to all under the Creative Common’s license. Watch and/or download it here.
