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Tommy is the online boyfriend of my nightmares

'Tommy-chat just E-mailed me' (2006)

(please just go watch it)

In order to maintain relevance years past its release, the topic of a work must have a timeless aspect to it. So how does this short video project perfectly reflect the same struggles of today’s youth, as well as of the youth seventeen years ago? 

‘Tommy-chat just E-mailed me’ is a seven-minute long videographic work by the artist Ryan Trecartin. Best described by the director himself, it takes place ‘inside and outside of an email’. Being stuck in the liminal time-space of 2006 United States of America, the work is a manifestation of the technological anxiety experienced by teenagers and young adults of the era. Its bizarre and maximalist visuals are reflective of the societal shift induced by new emerging devices, and the overwhelming experiences that come along with the futuristic becoming the tangible present. The ambivalent space that blurs reality and technology manages to stay relevant even today, seventeen years after its release. 

The narrative video short features several different characters who are constantly speaking over each other and using multiple communication platforms to interact, making it extremely difficult to follow on the first watch. Sort of how the characters themselves are experiencing these new technological changes! So do not worry if one watch is not enough to comprehend this fast-paced work; the characters are experiencing the same struggle.

It begins with email interactions between Tammy, a white-faced blonde woman and her online lover, Tommy. The content of the email is displayed on the screen, as Tommy’s distorted voice narrates them, alternating from being pitched up and down. This soundscape is already setting the ambience of the outward y2k overwhelm of technological devices. Following the exchange, the spectator is taken into Tammy and Beth’s surreal pastel coloured room, which is filled with random art installations. Due to its chaotic and dreamy colour scheme, the space reminds of a childhood room, awakening a sense of nostalgia within the viewer. This is especially relevant today, as the technology they use intensifies this factor of early 2000s nostalgia, specifically considering that the age of the video’s target audience has remained the same. As young adults of that period saw relevance in their current struggles, young adults now yearn for their childhood years and the time of old-school flip-phones and simpler communication platforms.

As the two girls are talking over each other, Beth clearly utilises Google to search for activities, as during 2006 the amount of users of the search engine has almost doubled compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, there are plenty of visual and auditory effects adding to the technological disarray. The emergence of simple editing softwares enables the heavy and surreal modifications of the video short, which is characteristic for the period. As the arbitrary effects engulf the spectator, the non-diegetic becomes a part of the diegesis. Tammy and Beth are fully submerged in the non-space of the digital. The viewer is immersed into this fever-dreamy liminal vicinity of Tammy and Beth. And as if Trecartin felt the hypnotising power of small screens already in 2006, he ends the with a chant and a zoom-in on a sunset. You are finally out of Tammy’s email world. 

The way ‘Tommy-chat just E-mailed me’ evokes the y2k nostalgia while simultaneously being extremely contemporary is both whimsical and nightmarish. The work reflects the inchoate digital metaverse in its conception. In the past seventeen years, technology has developed a lot. Will we ever get used to these changes?

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Greenhouse Burning

Burning (2018)

Reviewing this cinematic adaptation of a short story titled ‘Barn Burning’ by William Faulkner, or rather an adaptation of the reinterpretation by Haruki Murakami, is going to be a difficult task. Due to its onion-like nature, this film keeps peeling off layer after layer, sucking the spectator further down the never-ending rabbit hole. 

The film ‘Burning’ explores several heavy topics through a thick fog of tension, ambiguity, and three vastly different personas. It pulls you into an old white van, or an expensive car, and takes you on a back and forth roadtrip. This journey stretches from the urban environment of the wealthy South Korean men, all the way to a cattle-rich village bordering North Korea. The three important characters are the main focus of the film, as the director, Lee Chang-dong, plays with the viewer's perception of them. The film’s main strength lies exactly here; it keeps asking you questions, while providing no answers, leaving you wondering if you are interpreting it right. The masterful manipulation of this genre-bending piece makes you crave more of its bittersweetness, each watch giving you a taste of a different treat. 

Our protagonist is Lee Jong-su, a working-class delivery-man in his 20s. His ordinary little life is flipped upside down when he comes across Hae-mi, an old schoolmate and neighbour. We are told that their only interaction back in school was when he called her ugly, but a lot has changed since, particularly Hae-mi’s physical appearance. In a classic manic-pixie-dream-girl manner, she has peculiar interests, such as ignoring the absence of an object through the medium of pantomime. She can eat a tangerine whenever she wants just by simply forgetting it is there. Her charming quirks trigger a flow of fluffy feelings that swirls through the protagonist and the viewer alike. As they grow closer, Hae-mi makes a new friend/love interest, a mysterious and charming wealthy man, Ben. Lee is completely infatuated by him; Ben has everything Lee desires, including an exciting lifestyle, money and Hae-mi’s attention. The twist of the film occurs as Hae-mi vanishes into thin air, like a gust of smoke. Lee Jong-su is determined to find her by investigating his main suspect: Ben. But how reliably is Lee piecing the puzzle together? 

This question is never answered. In fact, no question gets answered, despite our burning desire to know. The viewer hopes and begs for a resolution, for the truth, but it is never explicitly addressed. All you can do is let 'Burning' completely submerge you in its world of ambiguous longing for meaning. The viewer searches for the meaning of the film, while the characters long for the meaning of their story. Lee Jong-su searches for Hae-mi, and in these moments of the film, you are as poor, as in love, and just as confused as he is.

So what is 'Burning' really about? Is it telling the story of a hungry girl who finds herself unable to choose between two very different men? Or is it a murder mystery triggered by the class tension and conflict in South Korea? Does 'Burning' simply tell the story of the endless search for meaning in every little thing, or perhaps the meaning of life? I am not sure if anyone has figured this out, but the burning questions are meant to be experienced, rather than answered. Was the invisible cat ever there? 

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The Ultimate 80's Killer Movie

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

The 80s were likely the most influential decade when it comes to the horror genre of film.

On one hand, we have slasher icons who were born in this decade, such as Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger. On the other, there is Stephen King and many of his filmic adaptations, the most iconic one being ‘The Shining’. However, if neither of those is your taste, there are plenty of charming and cheesy B movies. A personal favourite and a cult classic is the 1988 masterpiece titled ‘Killer Klowns from Outer Space’. Being the one and only feature film made by the Chiodo brothers, they made sure that this film has everything: klowns, killers, extraterrestrials and extravagant character design; what more could you want? The film perfectly encapsulates the 80’s zeitgeist of the cheesy horror genre, while staying perfectly self-aware and satirical throughout. 

The plot of the film begins as two teenagers in their late 20s head over to their local lovers’ lane to do local lover stuff. Debbie Stone and Mike Tobacco’s plan is disrupted by a strange shining object in the sky, which we later find out is an alien circus tent spaceship meant for trapping humans in flesh-dissolving cotton candy. So far, the plot is treated as very regular and normal, but this changes when we find out that the extraterrestrials are not little green Martians the way we usually picture them; they are, in fact, klowns! Killer klowns with a k alliteration, to be precise. All they want to do is terrorise the Californian town Crescent Cove and drink human blood. They achieve these goals by various methods: acid pies, popcorn guns, living hunting balloon animals, shadows of shadow puppets that can actually eat you, et cetera. Oh, they can also shapeshift and give birth through the popcorn gun bullets (the popcorn). After the teens explore the inside of the circus spaceship and discover the human cotton candy cocoons, they run off to let the police know. In a typical police manner, one of the officers thinks they are being pranked, while the other decides to investigate. 

The true beauty of this film lies in two factors. The first one being its tone. The film embraces its own absurdity and the context of its own creation. It is a slapstick horror comedy that is fully self-aware and pushes its own ridiculousness as much as possible. Its genius lies in its own stupidity. Even the actors' performances are flat and cheesy, which would usually be extremely off-putting, but it perfectly compliments the tone of this film. The entire runtime of 1 hour and 28 minutes had me completely invested in the plot (holes), feeling like I’m involved in some inside joke while giggling to myself.

The second factor that makes the film brilliant is its aesthetic and mise-en-scene. The costumes and klown masks were made by the Chiodo brothers as their main career path is special effects design, making every single klown is unique and recognisable. The film has the same atmosphere as nightmarish children’s shows, making it appear very nostalgic and dreamlike. The surreal design of huge klown heads and their various whacky equipment makes the visuals of the film very uncanny and bizarre.  All in all, this film brilliantly parodies the entire decade of filmmaking. It mocks itself, as well as the whole culture surrounding it. This aspect of parody is visible even before one watches the film - it is in the poster, which takes a famous quote from the 1979 ‘Alien’. So I will leave you with this quote: In space, no one can eat ice cream.