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I was there but wasn’t sure I wanted to be. This was surely the most bizarre film I have ever seen. I asked a young lady (who was also leaving the theatre) what it was all about. She was as mystified as I was. I noticed in the lobby a review written by my favorite film critic. I trust him implicitly. He raved about this film and thought it was brilliant. Obviously I am not sufficiently in tune.
It is filmed in Toronto and well known actors had a job. This is good. It was just so confusing.
It seemed to be a series of little vignettes but nothing added up. Let me give you a few examples. A man is in a small empty room. A paper is shoved under the door. It has a series of Chinese letters written on the paper. He then notices a book. ‘What to do if they shove Chinese writing under the door.” The young man begins to labor over the books to decipher the Chinese letters on the paper.
A man is at the water’s edge. In a droning voice he asks us to contemplate the waves. A shiny red pointer light is bouncing around on the picture of the waves. We are asked to contemplate the waves and try not to focus on the red dot. It was a difficult exercise.
People in an office are tracking the whereabouts of a few people on the street. They pin point their whereabouts with a stickpin on a map.
There are many doors and hallways in the picture. People seem to be lost.
(So was I)
I can only try to understand the mind games being played.
I did find myself laughing at times. I was totally confused all the time. I had fun trying not to focus on the red light while watching the waves in the picture.
Was this film trying to tell us something about how we are living life in this technological era? Maybe. The crazy part is that I feel I should go to see it again and try to make a deeper understanding of this experimental film.