Mar 24, 2025
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I thought I was a frickin’ genius for realizing that this whole movie was about video games but it turns out there are already full youtubes on the topic
Mar 25, 2025
@TYLER Sooo I can't find the aforementioned youtube but there are a few interviews out there mentioning the influence of Tomb Raider. In general what I noticed when I saw it included multiple scenes which seemed to be camera experiments emulating certain types of 90s video games (e.g. the Shadow of the Beast-style "parallax scrolling" of a long tracking shot of them running sideways; the "jumping off a rock" scene which looked like Prince of Persia or equivalent action/puzzle games; and a tumbleweed-laden hiking scene following a character with a steadicam camera in a very unnatural "Tomb Raider" like God's-eye position.) And then of course there is the initial pièce de résistance that really caught my attention, Casey Affleck's "I conquered Thebes" monologue, which makes the film seem so nutty and experimental until you realize it's just a quotidian description of a long Civilization II session...
Mar 26, 2025
@ICONICINDEX I think the best way to understand the film is sort of an analogous project to Jacques Tati's satires/explorations of modernist architecture in Mon Oncle/Playtime, but about video games. And it makes sense that Van Sant/Savides would follow it up with Elephant, which continues these kind of cinematographic experiments and partially interrogates the influence of video games on the Columbine shooters
