Debut: 'Rehearsal'
Filmmaker Michael Omonua writes in his Vimeo description that he sometimes makes video essays. His most recent work is titled Rehearsal which follows a young church group fabricating miracle healings. They move from idea to idea, pushing the boundaries of authenticity and integrity.
We open with a close-up of a young girl in sunglasses. A voice questions why she wears them and instructs her to take them off. As she moves, the camera moves. We enter an OTS (over the shoulder) of another girl wearing a similar blue uniform. We cannot see much of the background but it is clear that this moment is being orchestrated in front of us. As the vision comes to life, so does the audience. After the director appears and adjusts the two girls’ performances, we arrive at the title card. It is interesting that a oner is used for the opening scene because the remainder of the film is shot static with little to no movement. I found the slow unveiling of the film’s circumstances satisfying by easing out of a close-up into a wide and going from one key character to three. It practices the ‘show don’t tell’ tactic.
As the film progresses, we witness this acting ensemble perform numerous staged miracles. They mimic an assembly line with bottles of oil that are tagged with prices and labeled holy oil. They show their priest banishing sin and evil from the bodies of his youth. They even show devoted prayer’s ability to teach a man to walk again. With each situation, the frame widens on the objective of this group. They are trying to wow the public with the certainty of faith.
All of these stagings are filmed in the same hall. Because of this, the cinematography can truly shine. As mentioned before, the remainder of the film is shot very static. These frames give our actors room to breathe and perform without the interruption of cuts. The entirety of every scene is brought to a new level of satisfaction by the expert lightning. With careful play between shadows and bleak light as well as the use of a honeycomb-like ceiling beaming down rays on the actors, the simple hall continues to keep viewers engaged with each miracle. This goes hand in hand with the contrasting set design. The distant walls are jagged and carved with unique designs that absorb and cast light in various angles. No matter the blocking, the walls assist in keeping the eye entertained.
The pacing feels disjointed as we walk from miracle to miracle. The rehearsals are juxtaposed by audition tapes of the actors filmed in a separate room with a centered chair square to the camera and a fluttering curtain in the backdrop. One of the miracles depicts lust as the preacher begins groping the girl we first open on at the beginning of the film. The following scene is the first and only outdoor shot. We see the girl sitting outside on the steps. The framing is beautifully cut by the slightly open doors and the gray skies melt us into her mood. We go from this broody scene to another actor’s audition. The outdoor scene is so telling because it is the only time we see any of the cast outside of the roles they are rehearsing. Her moment is then dwarfed by returning to the random miracle conventions of the acting group. Towards the end, we see our leading girl’s audition where she explains she had a very similar traumatic personal experience.
It is within this audition tape we find the heart of the film. The girl states that we must keep smiling in the face of suffering to make sense of the madness. The miracles are all fabricated and they waste no effort keeping them concealed in realism because it is not realistic to deny the atrocities in this world. To believe there is good in the world when there is so much bad happening all at once is to believe in miracles. The message is bold and earnest but the pacing of this young girl’s story gets swallowed up by the various miracles they rehearse. After her audition, we cut to the final scene of the entire troupe dancing and singing praises to God. There is a lack of unity here since the previous auditions outside of the girl’s have shown us a lack or absence of faith from the other actors. One boy told a story of how a priest healed a paralyzed boy only to have him die two days later.
The film’s most robust tool was its cinematography via framing and the use of light. The actors are solid and reliable throughout yet the pacing stumbles in delivering a moving message on faith’s battle with the harsh nature of reality.
