I saw this together with "Conversation(s) with other women." Both try something ambitious with narrative structure, extending notions I call folding.
Here we have something that starts with noir — and by that I mean noir in the popular sense: black and white photography, a hard-boiled detective, some voice-over and seedy settings. These are only accidentally associated with noir in my mind; the real core of noir is the creation of a world that has features we as viewers expect and to some extent control. This filmmaker understands this, so has used noir for his narrative experiment.
The experiment revolves around a science fiction device: a notebook with some secrets of Quantum Interaction. The backstory has experiments that use repetitive number patterns to allow a researcher to start to bend time. Two lovers have faded in their love. She is a detective put on a case that leads them to this notebook. He engages in the experiment to recapture their love at the cost of his soul.
The story is told from her POV, which involves non-linearity in three respects: what we see and understand, what she sees and understands, what is understandable (in the sense of the physics changing). This last is to the heart of noir, where the act of seeing changes the cosmos.
Her cat is named Schrödinger. She has a doppelganger (her sexy female anima), played by a woman who dominates: she is a muse/teacher. She literally is the producer of the film, and she provides some competent moody songs. All of the actors are people we should know from various, mostly bad TeeVee, science fiction. It is all rather brilliant in the way it is conceived and worth seeing because of the ambition.
The problems are many though. The actual narrative, those threads you weave out of the fragments you are given? It just is poorly done. This needs more power in the actors, the lines and the cinema. It references urges that can bend the world. Polanski does this and delivers. "Ninth Gate." There is no there here. You may not notice this because it is easy enough to supply that romantic urge: we all have it and have nurtured it in our movie experiences. We carry it into this project and can plug in, indirectly increasing the narrative effect.
So that is not a lethal problem. The other problem may not bother you, but it worries me greatly.
This experiment relies on some detailed explanations of the "science" involved. As with many popular-level notions, we have selections from the most accessible and attractive features of Jungian cosmology mixed in with common misconceptions of quantum physics. It plays the same role in this story that mentioning a recent meteorite has in zombie movies. You nod, agree that the explanation is plausible and move on to consume the narrative.
The problem is both Jung and QI have possibilities that are much more powerful than those appropriated here. You can't start fire with water just because on screen it looks like gasoline. And you don't need all that folderol (good word) anyway. "Conversation(s) with other women" does much the same thing as here, but without the guff.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
Here we have something that starts with noir — and by that I mean noir in the popular sense: black and white photography, a hard-boiled detective, some voice-over and seedy settings. These are only accidentally associated with noir in my mind; the real core of noir is the creation of a world that has features we as viewers expect and to some extent control. This filmmaker understands this, so has used noir for his narrative experiment.
The experiment revolves around a science fiction device: a notebook with some secrets of Quantum Interaction. The backstory has experiments that use repetitive number patterns to allow a researcher to start to bend time. Two lovers have faded in their love. She is a detective put on a case that leads them to this notebook. He engages in the experiment to recapture their love at the cost of his soul.
The story is told from her POV, which involves non-linearity in three respects: what we see and understand, what she sees and understands, what is understandable (in the sense of the physics changing). This last is to the heart of noir, where the act of seeing changes the cosmos.
Her cat is named Schrödinger. She has a doppelganger (her sexy female anima), played by a woman who dominates: she is a muse/teacher. She literally is the producer of the film, and she provides some competent moody songs. All of the actors are people we should know from various, mostly bad TeeVee, science fiction. It is all rather brilliant in the way it is conceived and worth seeing because of the ambition.
The problems are many though. The actual narrative, those threads you weave out of the fragments you are given? It just is poorly done. This needs more power in the actors, the lines and the cinema. It references urges that can bend the world. Polanski does this and delivers. "Ninth Gate." There is no there here. You may not notice this because it is easy enough to supply that romantic urge: we all have it and have nurtured it in our movie experiences. We carry it into this project and can plug in, indirectly increasing the narrative effect.
So that is not a lethal problem. The other problem may not bother you, but it worries me greatly.
This experiment relies on some detailed explanations of the "science" involved. As with many popular-level notions, we have selections from the most accessible and attractive features of Jungian cosmology mixed in with common misconceptions of quantum physics. It plays the same role in this story that mentioning a recent meteorite has in zombie movies. You nod, agree that the explanation is plausible and move on to consume the narrative.
The problem is both Jung and QI have possibilities that are much more powerful than those appropriated here. You can't start fire with water just because on screen it looks like gasoline. And you don't need all that folderol (good word) anyway. "Conversation(s) with other women" does much the same thing as here, but without the guff.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.