Content Analysis of Zero Day Review

Village Voice

http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-09-02/film/teenage-wasteland/1/

One review on the film Zero Day was covered by J.Hoberman a writer from The Village Voice. This review is noticeably long and goes in- depth about the background of the film and the issues it raises e.g. Columbine massacre remake and the psychological issues faced by the drama genre. This is seen highlighted in the sub title/catch phrase.

This review brings up various topics on the film e.g. similar award winning films such as Elephant, Blair Witch Project and Home Room that the audience may have found appealing thus attracting them to also watch Zero Day. The USP attracting the audience is the “28-year-old filmmaker Ben Coccio” and the strategies he uses in the making of the movie. From the very first sentence it is seen, by the complex language, that this review is targeted at a niche market of an older generation and most probably a middle class audience that enjoy art house movies. Due to having this audience, they may not have time to read such an in-depth review, thus the brief information box along the side is relevant. This includes details on the movie such as the title, directors etc. along with related contents; this is links to related movies, other reviews and film festivals. Also includes links to tell the audience more about certain features of the film e.g. the film maker: Be Coccio, film makers of similar films: Gus Van Sant (maker of Elephant) and other topics such as more on the Columbine massacre.

The main focus of this review is the plot of the storyline along with the techniques used in order to add realism (conventional to the drama genre). It first explores the opening sequence to the movie and contrasts it to other films and the conventions usually seen with this type of film. Hoberman describes sounds-“Zero Day opens with an appropriate burst of aggro rock and home”, mise en scene-“first seen in their school parking” and the layout of how the movie is made- “Zero Day is presented largely as a series of tapes produced by its protagonists” this is a trait the film holds that may interest the readers. Realism is shown largely by description of the use of camera as it is mostly a handheld document but the ending is different - “(The climax itself is recorded on a security camera, as actually happened at Columbine.)”   

The review also takes notice of the characters used and their experience. The use of characters is significant to the movie as Coccio wishes to send messages through them in contrast to another film Thirteen. This brought up the realistic issue of “All high school massacres have been committed by boys— and with its emphasis on piercing, cutting and other forms self-abuse, Thirteen suggests that girls typically turn such adolescent rage on themselves”. Also the fact that 1 of the protagonists is a German migrant, the relation to Nazi’s is apparent in the certain scenes. However this does not reveal the reason behind the massacre but is explained as “Evil is existential”.

This review continues to compare Zero Day to the Home Room film and the various focuses of the film being of the victims that survived rather than the dead shown in Zero Day. Overall this is a high descriptive review on Zero Day, which outlined the main story line and looked into issues raised along with similar films.

New York Times

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9A07E1DC1238F930A3575AC0A9659C8B63&partner=Rotten Tomatoes 

This review is also quite long and in-depth. Similarly to the Village Voice review this one uses simplistic language. This review also outlines the storyline and the composition of the film being a self-document by two school kids. This also outlines the issues the film brought up to make it a drama genre.

Instead of contrasting the film to others, it looks into the similarities it has to reality shows, considering the structure of the film made by the director Ben Coccio. This review also uses quotes from the movie i.e. ''These are the best years of our lives.'' And ''We are the army of two,'' this gives the audience an insight to the characters.

This review also makes the reference to the columbine massacres, along with the use of media terminology of the mise en scene of the movie i.e. “low key film”.

The analysis of the genre is also added, this is seen when the realism conventions of a drama genre are explained i.e. when the review analyses the boundaries of the protagonists being ordinary teenagers to becoming mass murderers.  Elvis Mitchell also mentions the actors experience within the media industry calling them “inexperienced”.  However he goes on to say how these actors represented the characters well as he reconstructs and analyses  Andre’s 18^th birthday scene, looking closely at the relationship he has with his parents.  This moves into how the birthday scene isn’t foreseeing the coming events as the boys get on well with their parents, however the scene where they buy pipes for the bomb casing is foreseeing the coming events.

Elvis Mitchell rounds the review up by relating the end sequence to the title of the movie and the relevance of it. In contrast to the village voice review, at last paragraph of the review is simply the listing of the characters from the main character to the 911 operators. This review also has a rating scale, where it was rated  a 4.5 rating out of the 5 ratings being the highest.