Reviews and Reflections on CPR’s premiere by strangers, colleagues and friends.
“Your amazing film blew everyone away… it’s in an entirely different league.” J.W.
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“Reflecting on CPR, it’s powerful influence is felt on a sub-conscious level. The absence of dialogue, the dream-like sequences, the score…you don’t have to be qualified to appreciate it, you don’t have to be intelligent to be affected. You just have to watch, and listen, and observe how your short film infiltrates… Was there a shift from watching the film? Yes. Can I explain why or how? Not easily! But that only lends to the effect. If it’s affect is truly Jungian, then all of us can feel it — male or female, though I grant you, we feel it in different ways. Your work has the luster of a diamond and I hope it catches the attention such a gem deserves.” - G.H.
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“It was all so visually stunning… I keep seeing the blue of her eyes and the blue of the water. The red lips, the red lifeguard suits. The unreal dull flesh color o f the landscape and the dummy bodies. The dummy face smeared with the red lipstick. And so on. Beautiful. And all the water metaphors are potent for me… baptism, drowning, cleansing, the un-conscious/dream-state, being saved or being the savior, reaching a crisis where the heroine in all of us chooses to live or die. Wow!
Personally the part I found so haunting was the surreal detachment of everything except the dummies for the heroine. (There is this uncanny resemblance in the setting of your film to a time in my life when I felt that way the most - Southern California suburban home with pool, palm trees, dry hills in the backdrop…) But the universal part of this experience in any setting is her curiosity, that becomes astonishment, that becomes a sort of isolating horror, of having reactions and emotions and perceptions that it appears the entire so-called “context of reality” you find yourself in does not see, acknowledge or have any way what so ever of even co-existing with. (scream)
But she is smiling in the end, and so am I. Luckily, we were transformed.” - M.K.
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“Kimberly Warner’s CPR - my favorite of the bunch, drawing dual inspiration from the visual aesthetic of Mad Men and the narrative sensibilities of The Twilight Zone. Gary Nolton’s cinematography leaps off the screen.” - blog RainFallsDownOnAPortlandTown
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“I am still buzzing about CPR!! I feel like your movie speaks to people, no, it’s speaks to the collective unconscious and at the subconscious level, it’s like a key or a password that unlocks…something. It’s beautiful! It’s really beautiful! …when an artist makes art, I am not sure they understand the ripples in the pond it evokes!” - G.H.
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“…your film is stunning…the sound design and music, cinematography, and story were all dead cool…I’d love to help with your next film. Congrats on this one!” - J.B.
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“…really gorgeous. Such a work of art.” - S.S.
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“…sensual, enigmatic… This film is the feminine made manifest. Kimberly’s journey from the formless into form as her first short film, CPR, beautifully demonstrates, carries that core of the spacious and sensuous that IS the feminine soul. Art, in it’s highest expression is a bridge between realms, between the seen and the unseen, the real and the imagined. Thank you for your dedication to constructing a gossamer and shimmering bridge for us to meander both worlds, and glimpse remembrance of our dual citizenship.” - N.W.
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“I [wanted to tell you} how much I enjoyed your film CPR. Most visually stunning short of the night. - R.W.
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“CPR is an excellent piece. Hope it gets the chance to reach as many eyes as possible!” - N.B.
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“Exquisite on my first viewing and exquisite on my tenth. I cannot wait for [Kimberly’s} next flick.” - I.P.J.
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“It was amazing!!! Everyone was talking about it!” - T.G.
