The Cinema Arts Festival ended on a satisfactory note Sunday night when Tilda Swinton introduced the brilliantly restored print of the ballet classic The Red Shoes at Discovery Green (where my wife, Susanne Theis, is director of programming). The crowd was smallish, probably because of the light rain that had fallen much of the afternoon, but Swinton seemed truly delighted to be addressing them. She talked about how much she’d enjoyed her stay, and about Houston’s evident passion for the arts, and then sat down on the hill with everyone else to enjoy the film.
The visual riches of The Red Shoes might profit from a more controlled setting than Discovery Green’s inflatable outdoor screen can offer. But there was something quite wonderful about watching the film outdoors, with downtown as a backdrop, even as the screen bulged and contracted in the cool breeze.
Swinton evidently agreed, as she promised she’d get back to Houston soon.
On Saturday night, the Oscar-winning actress charmed guests at Lynn Wyatt's River Oaks home after the screening of her film, Lo Sono Amore, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Swinton said she had never seen an Academy Awards ceremony until she attended last year.
"I felt like someone had given me two tickets to Centre Court at Wimbledon — and a tennis racquet – and told me to get up and play," she said.
She won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Michael Clayton.
YouTube has become such a big part of the culture that it was only a matter of time before content creators started making waves in big screen filmmaking. Interestingly, most of them have made their names in the horror genre, including Danny and Michael Philippou (Talk to Me, Bring Her Back), Mark "Markiplier" Fischbach (the recent Iron Lung), and now Kane Parsons with Backrooms.
Set in 1990, the film centers on Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who owns a rundown furniture store in a nondescript city. He is divorced and seemingly depressed, two things that come up in his multiple sessions with his therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve). Lately, he has taken to sleeping in the store instead of going home, which allows him to notice strange electrical activity when the lights are supposed to be turned off.
When investigating the issues one night, he discovers a mysterious opening that leads to a completely different structure with a seemingly endless amount of rooms and corridors. Some of them are innocuous and some of them contain strange and creepy elements. With nothing else of interest in his life, Clark returns to the area night after night, eventually drawing in his employee, Kat (Lukita Maxwell), her boyfriend Bobby (Finn Bennett), and Mary.
The 20-year-old Parsons, helped by a number of well-known producers, demonstrates an astonishing level of filmmaking prowess for a first-time feature filmmaker. There is no trace of amateurishness in the progression of the story or the visual style of the film. Whatever confusion arises comes from the plot itself, which is designed to raise way more questions than answers.
Clark’s journey into the bewildering collection of rooms is full of intrigue instead of scares for most of the film, but when Parsons decides to amp things up, he really goes for it. The final third of the film contains some haunting imagery that defies description or explanation. It seems clear that Parsons’ preferred method of storytelling is to keep the audience off-balance, unable to predict what comes next.
What he also seems to understand, however, is that you have to give the audience something to hold on to, and in this case it’s the backstories of Clark and Mary. Both seem to be living differing versions of pathetic, uninteresting lives, but things revealed in their sessions broaden the scope of their stories. The strange world they find seems to reflect their respective traumas, giving a tenuous connection to reality that keeps the film from becoming too frustrating.
Ejiofor and Reinsve, both of whom are Oscar nominees, give the film an air of legitimacy that allows viewers to follow whatever odd roads Parsons wants to go down. Because it’s impossible to tell where the film is heading, the steady acting of Ejiofor and Reinsve is crucial in its success. Maxwell, Bennett, and Mark Duplass are good in brief appearances, but don’t appear enough to have a huge impact.
The ambiguous nature of Backrooms lends it the possibility of becoming a franchise, as Parsons could seemingly take it in any direction he wanted and have it feel part of the larger whole. Given how well done this and other recent films by YouTubers have been, the melding of the two seemingly disparate mediums makes more sense than ever.
