Nick Reve: Film Analysis

The movie is about a director, Nick Reve, trying to make a low budget film. It shows the struggles, hard work, cooperation and frustration that go into shooting a single scene. The first part of the movie shows the crew trying to shoot an emotional scene between a daughter, Nicole, and her mother, Cora. They try to shoot the scene several times, but every time, something goes wrong, and they end up taking multiple takes of the same scene. They try to convince Nick to cut the scene and take it in parts, but he doesn't agree to do so as he feels the beauty of the scene would be lost if he did. One of the takes involves Cora, an old lady, forgetting her lines after multiple takes. They cut the scene, and Nick asks Nicole and Cora to just
run through the lines. Everyone else is seen taking a break. Cora affectionately brushes through Nicole's hair, and Nicole gets reminded of her mother on her death bed and becomes emotional. This moment turns out to be the right moment for the scene to be shot, but unfortunately, the cameraman goes missing! Then Nick finally agrees to cut the scene and shoot it in parts. But again, there's a beep sound that disturbs the scene, and Nick loses his temper and starts shouting at everybody. The beep sound turns out to be the sound of his alarm clock, and Nick wakes up. It is then known that the entire scene was his dream! The second part shows them shooting a scene where two lovers, Nicole and Chad, who had been working together, confess their love for each other. Chad keeps changing the depiction of the scene after every take, and everyone gets frustrated with him. The two actors don't seem to be getting along well. Things turn ugly when Nicole overhears a conversation between Nick and Chad about her. Everyone starts fighting and hitting each other. Chad is then driven out of the set and sent away. Nick then confesses his love for Nicole, telling her he wrote the scene thinking about her. Then Nicole is seen waking up from HER dream. It is ironic that in reality, they were going to shoot a dream sequence in the movie that day.
Nicole, who plays Ellen, is dressed up as a bride. The dream sequence includes a grumpy dwarf named Tito. The scene starts with Ellen saying that she's very hungry (with smoke from the machine all around), and the dwarf enters with an apple and goes around her. She tries to reach out for the apple. The cameraman,Wolf, argues with Nick that the scene would look better if the camera was handheld, but Nick diagrees with him. Nick asks the dwarf to laugh, but he doesn't. After a few unsuccessful takes, the smoke machine runs out of smoke. They fill the gas in the wrong end, and the machine gets destroyed in the middle of the scene. Nick's mother comes to see him. They decide to finish the take without the smoke because the 'dream' still had a dwarf in it. The take again gets disturbed when Nick's mother comes into the scene by mistake. Nick tells Tito to laugh because "Strange things happen in a dream." Finally Tito gets frustrated and leaves the set saying, "I dont even have dreams with dwarves in them! The only place where I've seen dwarves in dreams is in movies like this!" Nick then decides to stop shooting and gives up. His mother then comes up and decides to play Tito's old role. Wolf shoots this with a handheld camera. The scene is shot perfectly in just one take, and they wrap up the scene. The movie ends with everyone feeling a sense of
relief. The movie shows that working on a movie set can be pretty stressful. It requires team work and cooperation. By showing multiple takes of the same scene, we get to understand the struggles that go into shooting a single scene. Watching the same scene run through several times is quite frustrating and boring, but this helps the viewer empathise with filmmakers and others on the set! This movie is highly recommended for people who want to be a part of filmmaking to understand the kind of work they would have to do.