Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

tromphisromphis The Tracey Fragments is a journey into the conundrums of human memory. The presentation and structure of the movie make it worthwhile watch for any cinemaphile.The use of multi-frame compositions is excellent, if flawed. The Tracey Fragments is at times uncomfortable to watch, but appropriately so. When Tracey relives the traumatic moments irreversibly etched into her memory, it is only appropriate you experience sympathetic distress. To watch this film you must make an active effort to obtain information by selecting a screen to focus upon, and consequentially you feel more like a participant than a voyeur. Through extremely sparing use of scenes with a traditional single frame, it makes these few scenes stand out like the crescendo of a George Gershwin song. The flaw with this film's extreme use of the medium to affect the audience's emotions is that it is apparent that it is doing so. Although you see the magician's trick, the showmanship is superb.Whereas the film's presentation empowers you to take an active role in partaking the movie visually, the storytelling is too authoritative. The presentation of the plot in disjointed fragments is conceptually excellent, but flawed in execution. Unlike David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, The Tracey Fragments does not blend fanciful fabrications and recollection of fact; the plot fragments are presented as a dichotomy of fruits of Tracey's imagination, and memories of formal events. However, It becomes increasingly evident throughout the movie, that Tracey's actual memories may be as misleading as the figments of her imagination.This film was shot in only 14 days, and it shows in the poor construction of some of the scenes. These shortcomings only make the movie a better analog for the memory of Tracey Berkowitz. The writing seems like a rough draft, but is all the more creepy for it. Ellen Page is excellent, even though she is more pretty than Tracey should be. The scenes with Tracey and Lance (played by Max McCabe-Lokos) are notably good and indicative of a chemistry built from previous work together.The Tracey Fragments is centered around its unique and powerful emotional impact. It is thought-provoking as well, but it is not notable as a purely cerebral thriller. I rate it highly on the merits of its strengths not on its lack of shortcomings. If it seems at all interesting to you, watch it; the worst possible outcome is that you won't like it.

Sophia H Admittedly, I was a bit put off by this film during the beginning five to ten minutes. At first I found the fragmented screen shots during the opening to be a clever play on the title, but when I realized that this was going to last throughout the entire movie, I seriously considered turning off the TV. "Oh great, another one of those laughable, 'uber-artsy' wannabe films." All of those flashing images and spooky voice-overs was like a sensory overload. But once I understood a little more about the characters and what was going on, I was immediately drawn to it.The Tracey Fragments is about a 15 year old girl caught in a struggle between her childhood innocence and the adult world that she will inevitably have to live in (I think everyone can relate to this at least a little bit, and that's what makes this story so interesting). Dealing with parents that don't understand her, feeling self-conscious at school and trying to understand the reality of her emotions is very confusing and overwhelming for her, which is beautifully illustrated by the disjointed, dream-like sequences that show us little pieces of her world.This isn't one of those "sit back and watch" kind of movies-- the twisted plot line and abundant symbolism requires real participation on the viewer's part. I think that's what gives this story some of its magic... you don't just observe the character, you actually get to experience her thought processes. The images can be shocking and disturbing, but it's all done with taste thanks to Ellen Page's phenomenal acting.All in all, I'm glad I suffered through the first few minutes because I came to really enjoy it in the end. I would recommend this to anyone who liked Requiem for a Dream, Thirteen, Memento, and other weirdly awesome movies.

bloodymonday Like Mike Figgis's Timecode which presenting the film four frames simultaneously on screen, sometime you just need to admire a person who did it; regardless what is said and done in the story. For their determination for inventing and experimenting something that count as a film, even you knew that you're not having a good time. The Tracey Fragments is the movie that will embraced by people who really into a film-making process, if not just for any regular moviegoers.In Christopher Nolan's Memento, the film plays with time. It was edited and rearranged backward as if an audience suffered from amnesia like the protagonist. The Tracey Fragments was also heavily edited to represent subconscious of adolescence mind. What's in Tracey's mind is fragmented; reality and fantasy are overlapping with each other simultaneously in each tiny frame presented on screen. It's maybe difficult to catch up from time to time, but it's worthwhile if you're getting the hang of it.And just like Memento, if you watch it in a perfect sequence narrative, it will be just another straightforward drama that has nothing much to add on. And to make it worse, The Tracey Fragments is suffered from serious lack of decent dialogs. What we've heard are only whining or bitching about society from hormone-inducing teenage girl. And it's even more embarrassing when secondary characters like parents or strangers open their mouth.But it maybe filmmaker's intention after all, maybe he want to show us how uncomplicated and simple adolescence are. They may speak what's in the heart without processing through the mind. Their tyrantness, lust, and stupidity that end up causing someone else's life, maybe this is the film that trying to show Tracey (By the way, great vehicle for Ellen Page, she's just perfect for the part) a step to embrace her own reality and feeling guilty for the thing she have done.The running time for this film is only 70 or so minute. It took only 14 days to shoot, but it took 9 months to edit. The Tracey Fragments may not teach you anything, nor give you a good time in return. But for that kind of dedication, you just gotta give it to them.

frankenbenz http://eattheblinds.blogspot.comYou can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. As of late, this phrase has been front-page headlines for all the wrong reasons, but regardless, the meaning behind it stays the same. For all intents and purposes, Bruce McDonald's The Tracey Fragments is a melodrama of After-School Special proportions, regardless of how hard the director (and his editor) try to dress it up as something more profound. Fragmented images act as multiple windows, forming an endlessly elaborate collage, peering into the dark recesses of 15 year-old Tracey Berkowitz's life and mind. This technique has been around for decades, it's origins forever tied to the annals of experimental film-making. Long before Bruce McDonald, the work of Stan Brakhage (the most prolific and famed of all experimentalists) was co-opted by music videos directors who made famous the disjointed, stylistic flourishes common to MTV in the 1980's. TTF looks and feels more like a music video than a conventional narrative film and since most kids who grew up on music videos have come of age, stylistically TTF cannot define itself as anything new.But amidst a mine field of cookie cutter Hollywood films, TTF does manage to distinguish itself as something more than the melodrama it merely is. If you can make it through the first 20-minutes you'll be rewarded, since at this point there seems to be a departure from the conventions of story telling into the hyper-personal, interior realm of a 15 year-old kid struggling with herself, her family and the unforgiving world around her. This portrayal may be framed within the plot driven melodrama, but McDonald reaches beyond plot by emphasizing the impressionistic quality of the visual collage he has painstakingly cobbled together. This is when the film becomes interesting, when the visuals take over and expand the film watching experience into something haunting and poetic. The dreariness and drab of Tracey's lower-class life transcends into something beautiful as each frame of her collage acts as a window into her soul. Ultimately, TTF's greatest asset is it's ability to effectively portray the mixed up mind of a teenager who is desperately trying to make sense of her world. We've all been there and we've all lived it, now you can relive the experience only this time, without the acne scars.