Harry goes to the same bar every day. He feels stuck.
After Will fails to comfort him it becomes apparent that Harry may not be acting freely.
Quickly the world he lives in drops away and he is forced to confront a world outside of his own.
FULL CAST AND CREW
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT
MARK SHAER - HARRY'S DAD. CLEMENTE LOHR - HARRY. TOM SMITH - FIRST AD. EVE CONG (ABOVE) - EMILY. DENIZ BERBEROĞLU - STAND BY ART. MAZ FERRER (ABOVE) - PRODUCTION TEAM. VOY BACH (ABOVE). KIAN BRADSHAW - ASSISTANT CAMERA. GRACIE SLATTER (ABOVE) - PRODUCTION DESIGN & COSTUME. JADE BOOTHBY - STILLS & BTS. PHILIP MUWAMBI (ABOVE) - WILL. CLAUDIA BUCHAN - SOUND.
SAM PAPIDAS - DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY.
NOT PICTURED: JOSH PATTERSON - ASSISTANT CAMERA. CHLOE BOSTON - PRODUCTION TEAM. MILO ABYSS - PRODUCTION TEAM. DOMINIC WEBB - COSTUME.
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CRITICISM
Harry (?) appears to encounter the Outside - that which is typically, and totally for the other characters, beyond the realm of ordinary perception and cognition. Interestingly, no trigger for this radical challenge to subjectivity is made apparent; from the very first scene, Harry appears alienated, becoming increasingly aware of some exteriority. The natural reaction is of course horror, but apart from this, there is nothing overtly unsettling about this outer world.
Scenes which would otherwise feel familiar are rendered alien in their compartmentalized, isolated nature. Stumbling from one scene to the next, the authenticity of Harry's existence - once fluid, now fragmented - is increasingly called into question. This reaches its peak with Harry addressing the camera directly, violating the formal barrier that separates his interiority from the Outside. Harry's Dad makes a revealing concession at this stage - "I know what you mean" - an apparent recognition of this multiplicity, perhaps realised in a time gone by, now resignedly incorporated into his being.
To me, the ambiguity at the heart of the film relates to Harry's eventual slumber. Is this a stoic acceptance of his new-found "location" in the world(s), or, more sinisterly, is his a subconscious reversion to a collapsed state, the existence of other worlds now a cognitively obstructed possibility? Either way, the possible resonances of Harry's situation with our own are many. If we take the latter position, then the political implications are clear: there is something both liberating and terrifying about moving beyond a political realism. However, sinking back into a lumpen slumber is all too easy, actively encouraged, and certainly placates our strange held desires.
My other train of thought is more to do with the former position. This seems to be relate to a kind of "growing up" for want of a better term, The realisation as you get older of an exterior, the broader relation of your life and the people in it to the world; the obvious difficulty in this and the value of accepting it as opposed to hiding away. This might be accompanied by a rejection of life's apparently limited content/chronology, e.g. the relationship, the family, etc. which are all constrained and determined by our political reality besides.
Tom Cozens