Give "Camera Obscura" it's two hours to run through the projector and you will find yourself becoming increasingly and increasingly more bored and disgusted with it.

It starts as an arty, colorful but far too slick film about a struggling photographer living with his foreign girlfriend who gets a job as a crime scene photog with the police. Writer/Director Hamlet Sarkissian (whew - is that his made up name? Or should his mother be kicked in the ass?) can't find anything interesting to do with this concept. He wants us to believe the photographer gets more and more drawn into taking pictures of his dead murder victims. But the only way he can achieve this is through artsy quick-cut edits and ridiculous pretensions. It just gets more and more silly.

And then, unable to make this angle of the film work, Sarkissian drifts off into la-la land. Or maybe that should be L.A.-L.A. land. The film becomes a crime drama of the most typical and uninteresting kind. When Sarkissian resorts to having his "bad police office" characters do drug deals it's one thing. But when he delves deep into the vulgarity that is trans-bashing, it's another. Trans-bashing, for those of you who don't know, is violence against transvestites/transexuals and transgenderals. There is a ridiculous and stereotypical trans character here named Fish (uck!) that is finally, beaten, tortured, pseudo raped and murdered. It's repulsive Hollywood garbage. Kirk Ward, who plays the ridiculous monstrosity that is Fish should have his head examined for taking the role. It's bad. It's the kind of hackneyed shit that leaves a bad taste in your mouth for days.

Sarkissian does have a few good things here and there. Ariadna Gil as the foreign wife and Cully Fredricksen as the bad cop are very good actors. They deserve far better script than they are given here. Fredricksen, who looks like the bastard son of Scott Glenn and "Rocky Horror's" Riff Raff is just eerie at times. His screen time with VJ Foster, who looks like bobby Valentine of the Fabulous Poodles, can be interesting stuff. But they eventually get bogged down in the bullshit that passes as story here.

Sarkissian can also film some beautiful visuals. A dance sequence involving a lighted orb is quite beautiful. But Sarkissian delivers this shining moment right after another arty and pretentious B&W dream sequence that lasts forever. This is the film's second-biggest problem (after the turgid script), there is a dramatic need for an editor here. The film's bloated 2 hour + running time lags on and on like a dripping faucet. and it just gets worse and worse as it goes.

All in all, the film is overly stuffed with artistic nonsense. The camera click SFX, which sounds as pictures are taken, is combined with shotgun SFX to make repeated pointed exclamation points in the film. The Bernard Hermann-esque score is wonderful and lush but in the end, it only serves to remind us that this film wants desperately to be "Hitchcockian." The film's camera work, at times, seems like an episode of "NYPD Blue" shot by an art school student. The film's end is nothing short of ridiculousness. It doesn't matter. It makes absolutely no sense.

"Camera Obscura" is art film mumbo jumbo playing at being crime drama. It's horrible and degrading shit that SXSW should be ashamed to show. I was ashamed to sit through it. But, at least, now, you don't have to.

Note:

Score by Tigran Mansurian.

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