User Reviews

This is a very interesting film and yet looks like something pretty much anyone could make. its a clever concept of which i believe to be that there's a dog who see's itself as a little girl. i didn't understand this at first but my film teacher was able to enlighten me on the subject and it all became clear. however strange a concept this is, it does make the film seem more... how do you put it... worth watching. well, its only like 3 minutes anyway, so you might as well. its a very good film for looking at techniques in building suspense and uses quick cuts really effectively. i cant say i enjoyed it that much, but i think its very valuable for study purposes.

Hazel Grian's short film LOU LOU LIVES HERE opens with a tracking shot of an electricity pylon in the countryside . The photography is black and white and grainy which I suppose is an artistic decision on the part of the director since it is admittedly atmospheric . We , the audience , then see a young girl in a summer dress lying motionless on the ground with the sound of a helicopter in the near distance . Has she been involved in an accident ? Is she alive ? Is she dead ? She's not dead because she moves and walks along a road where she sees a dead rabbit

I'm sorry to say but I found this short slightly confusing . When I saw the dead rabbit I thought this might be the type of story that points out what an ugly place the countryside can sometimes be . Come on how many school trips for children have been cut short because the children are traumatised that Harry Hedgehog has been found freshly splattered all over the road ? But this isn't actually the subtext . To be honest I'm not entirely sure what it is about and the abstract images and noises didn't help any further

This film is more like a poem than the narratively fixated majority. Lou Lou lives here has broken free of the strictures of the film grammar cookie cutter and as a consequence creates a unique visual style and feel It contains some disturbing visuals and creates an unsettling tone using the digital technology to good effect. Very uncomfortable to watch. I'd recommend seeing this film if you have the chance. Its a good film and you can learn something yourself about what makes a good short film with very little expense. Judging from the page on IMDb its not very well known. I checked it out of my university library with a bunch of other digital shorts but this was better than the others by some distance. The girl puts in a subtle performance, a real feather in the cap for 'Lou Lou' which i was a little surprised by because often major studio productions struggle to produce credible performances from children. Perhaps most importantly and setting itself apart from many short films(or the ones i seem to see anyway) it is not smug or self satisfied or tries to overwhelm you with its own cleverness.

I'm not entirely sure what the point of this film is and, although I don't always need a film to have a deeper meaning or point to make, I generally do when I've sat for a few minutes watching what looks like a young girl being abducted by a man in a white van, raped and murdered in a field. The film is shot in very sketchy black and white, with lots of have seen images which lead me to believe that the film end up twisting our perceptions around on us and trying to say something about perceptions in this modern age where parents fear child killers at every step. However it didn't appear to do anything (although I admit that I may not have "got" the thing with the dog – I just took it to be a dog that was there at the time of the killing) and the end result of this is that the supposed murder is the whole film and it makes for a rather tasteless affair that is unpleasant to watch. I think I'll leave it there because there wasn't anything else of real value to comment on. I want to think I'm wrong on this and am too dumb to see the bigger picture but I can't; I would invite anyone who has an insight to please let me know and I'll keep a copy of this film so I can watch it again if I get a new light shed on it – mainly because I don't want to believe that what I saw was the whole film.