The emergence of 80s style instructional videos as a narrative structure has seemingly taken on an interesting renaissance with many festival entries lately. This can be attributed to the aspect of the high performance avant-garde nature of the original participants likely, in their space, unware. Many years later, we look at these infomercials as exactly what they are meant to be except with the guise of time. The people who made them believed completely in their possibility. What is genuinely sardonic but adds to the midnight/Betamax enjoyment of this type of film in “Survival Skills” is watching the subject per se (Jim [played by Vayu O’Donnell], an eager to please police officer in training) operating almost like a happy drone/clone slowly come to terms with decision and logic. The movie slyly underplays that what is expected in society is not often the expected outcome. By having Stacy Keach narrate and almost subvert the story (because of his past texture of Mike Hammer), the movie maintains balance and a sense of order while the lead character slowly unravels in certain ways. But the good guys don’t always win.
The video, as a construct, is supposedly to show how to be a good cop as well as recognize and pinpoint human behavior as it happens without getting emotionally involved. Watching Jim (who starts off as an automaton but starts to not follow his fourth wall breaking maestro) is an interesting progression especially when certain realities start to bleed over. The use of montage and the aspect of taped over videotape (with the requisite static) adds to the tone before the film eventually shows you that it is indeed modern (as if some of the behavioral aspects weren’t already a give away). Ultimately the two performance of Jim and Keach’s maestro overlap just enough to give a sense of cleverness. In a way, “Survival Skills” tries too had to show the exercise it is performing but sometimes that voyage is a necessary intention to understanding what the movie is trying to say….namely that a hero is so much in his own mind as the community whose supports he or she needs to succeed.
B-
By Tim Wassberg
The Inside Reel 