Told in a style that is best described as a series of vignettes which loosely connect around the school-year calendar, Whitney Horn & Lev Kalman's L for Leisure tracks a series of graduate students as they spend time away from the classroom, documenting their overall demeanor with the passing of time. With activities that include hitting on teenagers, coed-wrestling, and leisurely time at the lake, L for Leisure is a unique experience which manages to deliver dry humor and a surprising amount of substance in what essentially amounts to a kaleidoscope of sequences in which a group of graduate students slack off. Being a film that could somewhat be classified as part of the twenty-something existential crises sub-genre, L For Leisure is a pretty singular vision, delivering a unique brand of dry humor that at times almost feels like a satirical take on the films which it shares some common themes. The acting is intentional stilted, the situations vary from the mundane to the absurd, and yet L For Leisure manages to both deliver some hilarious moments as well as resonant soliloquies on a host of issues. What I truly loved about L for Leisure is how tonally reflexive it becomes, with many of the graduate students conversations revealing universal truths that resonant while others border one satirical, as if the filmmakers are poking fun at this particularly age in life, one where twenty-somethings tend to think they know everything about how the world works. Taking place in the early 1990s, L For Leisure feels like a time capsule, with the filmmakers winking and nodding, as they transport the viewer back to the good-vibes of the era. The cinematography aids this endeavor, using low-fi 16mm photography that is reminiscent of 90's television or home movies, which make L for Leisure feel even more like a time capsule of an era. This is not a film for everyone, as many won't find much comedy in the sarcasm and extremely dry humor, but what Whitney Horn & Lev Kalman have created with L for Leisure, is a truly unique film which manages somehow to feel satirical while simultaneously capturing certain truths, including the importance of release from life's stresses.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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