Artspolitation’s Meta Action Comedy SNOWFLAKE Delivers the Goods
Meta-commentary movies are always a toss up, they can either come off as a tantalizing analysis in genre craft or they can try to come off as too smart for their own good. Luckily, Snowflake lands heads up on the toss and delivers an engaging meta-action comedy about two men pursued by various assassins and a hobbyist screenwriter with an unknown power.
Take any screenwriting class and you will be indulged in the premise that a writer holds the power of a god over their story. They can either choose to be a kind god, a cruel god or a bumbling one. A lesson soon learned by Javid and Tan, two small-time crooks whose lives become suddenly very complicated after discovering a screenplay in their backseat… but not just any screenplay. To their surprise, they are the main characters and the past few moments of their lives are written verbatim. “Impossible” says both the next dialogue line and Javid. They immediately read ahead to discover that someone is out to kill them, its not known why but there’s talk of angels, a new Hitler, and an underground league of serial killers that’s about to bring their small time life into Hollywood level absurdity.
Astonished by cliche after cliche of dramatic thought, Javid and Tan track down the writer to an office where they meet the Dentist who is shocked by seeing his characters in real life. A heated interrogation leads to the discovery that the dentists writes screenplays for a hobby, why he’s been given to the ability to bring his stories to literal life… no one knows but he’s in it now and must try to finish the screenplay for his life, Javid and Tans life and for the entire fate of Germany.
Arend Remmer delivers a fantastically exciting action experience that splits its time between the comedic farce of two unwilling characters trapped in a screenplay and a heightened fantasy world that comes to the whim of the dentist. The action plot is served as serious as it can be with its tongue in cheek as a rather ridiculous plot leads to several twists of serial killer cannibals, a mob bosses daughter and her bodyguard and the crime boss they call God. In between you can find all the makings of some ridiculous action movie that wouldn’t be worth a salt save for Remmers engaging meta-context surrounding it. The bad ideas are bad because the dentists’ ideas are bad and it creates a wonderful formula of perspective to play in as trope after trope is confounded by Javid and Tan’s attempt to survive and influence their story’s creator… the true and bumbling God… the screenwriter.
This self aware action comedy is a blast. The camera work is exciting and Remmer’s tone is a playful stroll through the various genre cliches and subverts them with his own spins. The self aware nature of the film and characters within the film makes for an unpredictable and enjoyably absurd rabbit hole to fall down for a good two hours and ultimately leaves you with a feeling that something very special has just happened. Breaking the fourth wall with his meta-context Remmer has just given you everything you’d want out of an action comedy and woven his unique pulpish embrace of the genre to craft an unpredictable and exhilarating action movie.
