Movie Review: Look

Startling and unique Adam Rifkin's Look is a film that should not go overlooked before top-ten lists are compiled. As entertaining as it is poignant and frightening, Look is like nothing audiences have ever seen before.

Interweaving stories of several different groups of people, whose interactions ultimately drive each character's plot, is not exactly a new concept. Since Babel's stunning success with the concept last year, the market has been flooded with non-linear narratives. What makes Look unique is its approach. Told entirely through master shots, photographed using digital photography, Look gives audiences a glimpse into what the 30 million surveillance cameras in the United States pick up everyday when you think no one else is looking.

Everything from innocent pranks to illegal fornications and brutal murders are staged and photographed through the eerie lens of surveillance cameras. Whether the footage is pulled from a fish-eye, ATM camera or a bird's eye view of a department store, Look will have audiences constantly checking behind their backs to see who is watching.

Through its unique visuals Adam Rifkin has accomplished a truly impressive feat. The writer/director has created powerful imagery that shocks, frightens and entertains using only wide, master shots. Never once do we get intimate, glamorous Hollywood close-ups of the characters that inhabit Look. We get to know the subject only through the eye of the video camera's recording. Rifkin takes imagery that is usually reserved for a quick insert, which is characteristically used to supplement the visual narrative, and fleshes it out into a truly captivating and thought provoking experience.