Review of Buy it Now

Introduction

Chelsea, a 16 year old from New York, is a veritable checklist of troubled teenager indicators: parents are separated, she is obsessed with celebrity and material goods; taking prescription medication; seeing a therapist and self-harming. At the prompting of her friend, Stacey, she decides to sell her virginity on eBay, to "get it over with" and make some money, "killing two birds with one stone". The `item` is bought using `Buy it Now` for $1500 and Chelsea travels to a hotel to meet the buyer and complete the deal.

The story is told twice, with the titles "documentary" and "narrative". The documentary is made from footage that Chelsea shot on her own DV camera and gave to a film student who she met at a house party. The narrative film uses third person, rather than first person, footage to tell the story.

Video

As you`d expect from a film shot on DV by a 16 year old, the quality of the footage is poor, with the computer monitor difficult to see, due to the different frame rates producing flicker. The narrative film is better, though not perfect, as lighting levels, focus and sharpness all leave something to be desired.

Audio

DD 2-channel mono for both films, with no subtitles.

Features

None.

Conclusion

There`s a sure-fire way of getting a reviewer in a bad mood: send them a DVD-R of your film with the title hand-written in marker pen. So when I put this DVD in I expected a work-in-progress disc with no menu or indication of provenance, but was pleasantly surprised to see the Dogwoof Digital logo and a proper title menu.

Now in a good mood, I watched the two films and was extremely impressed by their power and the quality of the acting, especially that of Chelsea Logan. Although purporting to be real, `Buy It Now` is a faux-documentary, like `The Blair Witch Project`, with similar title cards to convey authenticity. The only aspects that give the game away are the camera angles in the documentary feature, which seem too convenient and well-placed, and the footage of Chelsea cutting herself, which struck me as false. This aspect of Chelsea`s makeup is far better handled in the Cinéfondation award-winning narrative version, where Peter notices the scars on her wrists in the hotel room.

Despite knowing that what I watched wasn`t real, the documentary version still felt real in its depiction of Chelsea`s home life and moral quandary and discomfort when sitting on the hotel room bed, waiting for Peter to arrive. Although the narrative version does not have the vérité approach of the documentary, with a fly-on-the-wall style instead of first-person shooting, it is still a powerful, gripping and extremely well executed film which is tough to watch.

At only 60 minutes (28 minutes and 32 minutes) and with no extras, this is a DVD unlikely to find its way onto people`s shelves, but a rental is highly recommended.