Backrooms (A24)

[Magical Realist]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HjdiohVOik&t=124s

[C C]

Yeah, I need to see that, since it maybe echoes some of the lucid dreams I once had. And the capacity of any reality simulator (like the brain) to just keep generating "more" for an observing avatar wandering around in its oneirocosmos.

[C C]

We watched it. This 20-year-old "kid" might be the next Spielberg or just a one-trick pony.

Set in the 1990s (perhaps to avoid cellphones), and sports both "found footage" like Dagr and 4:3 camera-held footage of the era. Most of it is "live" in widescreen, though.

Reminded me of "Solaris" (1972) and "Annihilation". More the former than the latter, though, and moved to Earth in the form of endless furniture rooms rather than an enigmatic living ocean whose mimicking behavior not even researchers could decode or comprehend. Others may instead consider it an allegory about Clark's mind (the narrative teases with that a few times), but I don't feel that flies for various reasons.

The large success of this independent film may trigger a shift to lower-budget films and a corresponding dependence on better writing and originality than the recycled spectacles that have dominated for years.