TimeScapes (2012)

Tom Lowe's Timescapes is nothing less than amazing. Every piece of this film is aesthetically pleasing and will keep you entertained the whole way through. The people complaining in these other reviews are just being overcritical. I guess they can't respect a beautiful piece of cinematography. There really is not story, but Tom didn't need one at all, the sequences speak for themselves. The time that was put in to making this is a story of its own. Watching this on a Google TV looked absolutely stunning, it was super crisp and the picture was just super pleasing all together. If you enjoyed Baraka/Samsara you will definitely enjoy this. In my book it's a must watch.

So it's obvious Lowes masters time-lapses, and motorized tripods, and sliders, but it's also obvious he has no idea about filmmaking. Basically there's no considerations put into the audience here. The film was made by Lowes for himself.I would say 50% of the movie is comprised of shots filmed in front of trees looking at the night sky, and then plenty, just too many shots of windmills... then some random shots based on where he was at the moment he was filming.There's ZERO story, no line, no message. Lowes mentions his inspiration in Ron Fricke, the cameraman behind Baraka, but we're very farm from Baraka. Very.I think you can easily bring that film down to 5-8 minutes movie to make it actually enjoyable, and without repeating scenes like he did.It's too bad. Directing and cinematography are not the same, I'm sure he knows that by now, and of course it never hurts to try something new!

When the "movie" begins, the scenes take your breath away. This huge resolution, these beautiful landscapes and pictures of our night sky.But after 5 minutes I realized: that's it. There comes nothing more. Just a technical demo of what is possible with high resolution cams. Even the soundtrack is completely uninspired.I love nature documentations and I love movies like "Home" or "Baraka". Even when nothing is said and no story is told (like in "Baraka") it can be a great movie if the director has a vision of what he wants to show you. But TimeScapes has no vision or just is not able to give you a glimpse of it. It's just one scene after another and even worse - it just repeats the same motives over and over: flying pelicans, some valley, Joshua trees, night sky, same rocks over and over again. And then all over again from a slightly different angle. Mostly it shows dead things and rarely living things, animals or humans.I am really looking forward to what this technology can be used by a visionary film maker. TimeScapes is a documentation, not on the scenes it presents, but rather on how the best equipment can not make a good movie.

The Good:Some amazing scenes, especially in the first half.The Bad:Music seemed a little bit dull, so I muted the movie after 10 minutes and played some music from my own library to go with it, it was much better. HUVA Network and Carbon Based Lifeforms fit like a glove.My main gripe with this movie is its length. Its effective duration is only 39 minutes, the rest is title screens + credits. Even so, 39 minutes is more than enough to get bored by seeing more or less the same tree projected against the night sky every third shot or so.Chances are you don't have a 4K system in your living room, so do yourself a favor and buy 1992's Baraka on Blu-ray instead.