For about as long as people have made films, there have been films about making films. It’s a reasonable conclusion; filmmakers are endlessly encouraged to write what they know and make films with what they already have, and self awareness is perpetually en vogue. The unfortunate side effect of this is a trend of filmmakers with little more to say than that they can afford two sets of lights.
All Is Vanity, directed by Marcos Mereles is at least initially, a film about a photoshoot gone wrong, with a cartoonishly snippy photographer (Sid Phoenix) antagonising everyone on set well before a member of the crew mysteriously disappears. From here, the film devolves into something harder to define, largely comprised of its minimal cast being rude to each other as they try to work out how to complete the shoot. There are moments of creativity here as Mereles is forced to find more creative ways to frame his stars than endless medium closeups, but the overwhelming feeling in this stretch is that the film is stalling until it can do the thing it’s been waiting to do since its first frame.
To say that the film pulls a rug out from under us would be implying the existence of a rug in the first place. But it is true that in its second half, the story of All Is Vanity takes a sharp turn, revealing its own constructedness as the film’s narrative moves through the fourth wall and becomes a story about making the film that up until this point we had been watching. It is not clear what motivated this decision as besides the introduction of the director character (Christopher Sherwood) and performances shifting, little has actually changed. The reveal that the first act of the film was bad on purpose comes less of a relief and more as a warning. From here on, the narrative shifts towards a kind of vaguely supernatural mystery, building on the question of the missing makeup artist, now a missing actress. There is an unfortunate sense that the film is far prouder of this reveal than it maybe should be. This is not so much a challenge to reassess what had come before so much as more of the same but with the feeling that we’re supposed to be more impressed this time.
Where All Is Vanity does succeed most is in its presentation. While a simple film, produced on a low budget in one location, there are some moments of genuinely resourceful creativity to expand that space into something more fantastical. The film’s direction is simple and its compositions are largely flat, but there is a clear awareness of that elevating its style to a kind of cinematic irony, feeling almost like student film aesthetics taken too far which compliments the story well, if intentional. Despite my issues with its narrative, this is a good example of the creative potential of low budget filmmaking and its most successful story beats are born of the endless problem solving that is a part of filmmaking on any scale. The film’s cast is generally good, executing the dual roles successfully and carrying the film across the holes in its story to some kind of catharsis.
As a film about making a film, All Is Vanity is not wholly unsuccessful. Its big ideas and smart approach to low budget filmmaking do earnestly reflect the feeling of setting out with the shared goal of bringing an idea to life. Similarly, it is not without charm in its smaller moments even if it is at risk of crumbling under the weight of its grandest plans.
