Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: HUNTING DAZE [South By Southwest Film Festival 2024 - Austin, Texas]
The notion of finding perspective comes down to the people that come into your realm of vision. With "Hunting Daze" [Midnighter], the angle becomes one of wolves where the sheep change shape. Nina is a girl partying her way across the country and working as a dancer. However, she at times gets along with some and not well with others. When circumstances force her to take off with a former fling/client, he takes her to her cabin where his friends are having a hunting weekend. He tries to dissuade her from crashing but she believes in her own survival even if there is some dread and issues. She has to keep up with the guys but also both play into and against their primality (not necessarily) in desire (but that does play into it) and their games. It is about the hunt but also about the experience and along the line, especially with a man who stumbles into their circle in the forest (like a wandering shaman), the game changes.
He, in fact, changes their perspective and perception while also leading them further away from civilization. It is not so much to kill or be killed as it is, would one do so if it called for it? Nina doesn't flinch but she also knows that sacrifice (maybe not her own) is required. And how that plays out towards the end just shows who is willing and who has the cahones to make it or commit to it. The film does a good job of shielding alternate perspectives so that what one is seeing is just a consrquence, and not, at times, what actually happened. The way that masculinility at work plays when the person is trying to change what they might be is an interesting chatracter.But as the reconcilliation comes to bear, it has to do with conscience or just a stubborn will to do what is right in one's mind. All these people in this film are disctinctly trapped in a cage both figuratively and metaphorically (and sometimes literally) but it is the logic of what they are trying to do versus who they are trying to be. Nina works on a different waevelength since she understands the issues on both sides, how to play them but also where the line is. B
By Tim Wassberg
