Something in My Lungs (cough cough) I Mean the Dirt
Something in My Lungs (cough cough) I Mean the Dirt
Last week, I received an urgent call from my boss to come and help her with a presentation at 4:30 P.M. While I was walking to her office, one of our managers came around the corner and said, “Did they call you about your bike? Some lady just hit it in the parking lot.” Almost concurrently, I got a text from my wife (who, mind you, would be my only way to get home at this point) telling me her cough had gotten so bad she was vomiting. It was an odd confluence of events, and probably didn’t help that I was also starting to feel pretty sick myself. I just sort of stood there, dumbfounded, for a minute. What do I do first? Get the insurance info from the woman? Get a tow? Try and knock out this presentation? Schedule an uber, because, if my wife’s vomiting uncontrollably, who’s watching the baby?
Thankfully, I have a very kind boss who not only helped me think through what to do about the bike, she even skipped her workout so she could follow me all the way to the bike shop to make sure I didn’t crash, and give me a ride home. It was one of those times where I felt extremely lost, and subsequently almost immediately extremely grateful for the people I have in my life looking out for me (even the bike shop guy was great - I told him what had happened and he immediately said “wow, great Valentine’s day huh? … Well, was she at least pretty?” - it was a nice moment of levity).
I’m not sure what that has to do with the film I’m going to talk about next. I’ve been sick for over a week now, and honestly not sure I have the energy for a good segue.
Actually, maybe that’s the perfect segue. The film I’m here to talk about today was filmed during the pandemic, by one of my favorite filmmaking duo’s, and a lot of the film seems to teeter on an edge of unsure transitions, connections that may or may not be real. Like this intro, it’s hard to tell where things are going, and if that’s a result of a meandering and lazy writing . . . or maybe it’s by design/all part of a secret, coded subtext that is there if you just take all the vowels from the first sentence and apply a rot cipher cross referenced against any grammatical errors, missing punctuation, and unUsual capiTalizations*.
Something in the Dirt (2022)
Justin Benson and Aaron Morehead have made some very interesting films, including The Endless, Synchronic, and Spring while also having ascended to the “next level” of filmdom by directing episodes of Moon Knight and (if Wikipedia is to be trusted) an upcoming episode of Loki. What I’ve often said about their films is, if you are not in the right mood, then they will likely fall flat and induce massive eye rolls at filmmakers who are “too far up their own assess” (this was my wife’s take on The Endless).
When I saw Spring, easily my favorite of their catalogue, I must have been in the right mood - it brought me almost to tears. It was so weird, so utterly romantic in the most unique way, I felt like if I found a woman who understood it the way I did, I would have to divorce my wife and run off with her (not really, but perhaps this gives you a sense of how strongly I reacted to the film). I went online and read reviews and the consensus seemed to be - no consensus. Lots of people just HATED it, some people really liked it. Some people thought it was… just fine. A lot may have to do at how you view the main character - a young man who, after watching his mother succumb to cancer in the first scenes of the film, jets off to Italy to escape life for a bit. As someone who lost a parent around the same age, I absolutely felt some sort of kindred sensation. If I could have escaped to Italy during those first few months after my father died I … well, not to ruin things (sorry I’m going to ruin things) I might find myself falling in love with what turns out to be a Lovecraftian monster in the guise of a beautiful woman (and that’s a gross oversimplification - just… just go watch it. it’s great).
I’m digressing here, but the main point is, most of their films elicit a wide range of reactions. One reason, I think, is because they always feel like films that were made by the two film students who lived in the apartment/dorm next door when you were in college, hyperintelligent kids who stayed up until all hours of the morning excitedly pitching grander and grander film ideas until they finally passed out at 4:45, inevitably late for some class or another that they, also inevitably, always seemed to somehow pull a solid 3.5 out of in the end. If you’ve ever known these dudes, and even were friends with them, you probably can forgive a little bit of jank because you love the genuine commitment to the idea of it all and, because, you know, you love those guys! If you didn’t well… your reaction might be less kind.
More objectively, I’d say all of their films have some sort of central conceit that, just on it’s own, is worth the price of admission, even if the end sum doesn’t always carry the promise of the premise off as grandly as the idea itself. Their films also have a solid, core element of humanity: people struggling with real, people things (love, age, death). The problem is, sometimes, if you don’t understand and know those characters (or know people like them/struggling with the same struggles), it just may not land with you.
This is all a long preamble to say that this film is an exception for several reasons: One, I don’t think my opinion of this film would change during any circumstances. The film itself is an extremely solid statement of what it is, even if I don’t always like that statement. Two, although there is a very interesting central idea here, there are also about 10 quadrillion ancillary ideas also going on. However, that’s by design, because, Three, the point of this film is tightly bound to the fact that perception can be hugely unreliable. I’m also not sure I can recommend it.
Basically, two struggling L.A. dudes (John, a math teacher who we later find out is an evangelical; Levi, a washed up bartender with a dubious history that is slowly revealed to be less dubious and more just tragic throughout. maybe.) meet each at their shared apartment complex. Levi’s apartment has been empty for 10 years and, while John is helping him move in, a quartz ashtray begins to levitate and emit light. John and Levi decide, because LA, the best thing to do is to make a documentary as their “ticket out” - though Levi, from the jump, seems to express some (surprisingly reasonable) concern that, you know, maybe you shouldn’t mess with things you don’t understand.
What follows is a trip down conspiracy, rabbit hole lane. In an interview, the director’s/writers (who also play the main roles) talk about how an early draft had them basically take every zany idea they ever had for a film and chuck it in there as an explanation for the phenomena. The cult of Pythagoras, aliens, sacred geometry, interdimensional portals. Synchronicities seem to pile up: The number on a recorder “1908” matches the tattoo on Levi’s hand and, aha, it must be a reference to the year the founding architect of the city (a follower of the cult of Pythagoras! (maybe)) drew the plan for the city, plans that seem to match a geometric design scrawled in a doorway!
It would be easy for us, as the viewer, to dismiss all this as the working of a sort of mass psychosis between these two (perhaps, drug induced - there is a particularly telling scene of some sort of red flowers being smoked, and closeups of cigarettes being given and taken throughout the movie that may hold a clue. maybe.), if it weren’t for the footage we see of the actual supernatural events. Throughout the film, we see footage from the vantage point of the two main handycam cameras, a surveillance camera, but also a non-diagenic camera angle as well that leads us to believe what we are seeing is real.
Then something happens midway through the film. John decides to close the windows in the apartment because he is afraid that there is a radiation leak and, by doing so, ends up melting many of the hard drives. So, then, how do we interpret all the footage we saw from the beginning of the film up to this point, particularly the “raw footage” of these events? There are several, telling, talking head interviews that shed some light on things (maybe). In one, an interviewee asks “so, why did you decide to play yourself in the re-enactments?” Indeed, we even see shots that are, in fact, John and Levi re-enacting a scene to make it more “compelling.” In another interview, we find out that there have been at least 7 different editors working on this "documentary,” including some hired to provide professional VFX. Hilariously (intentionally), many of the interviewees often are seen questioning the utter lack of professionalism of John (and Levi.. . maybe).
By the end of the film, two things happen. One, there is an emotional peak that, for my money, is very well acted and carried off by both actors/directors. It feels utterly real, correct, and forms the emotional core of this movie. Two, you realize that you absolutely can’t be sure what part of what you just witnessed is actually real.
I’m not talking "omg Christopher Nolan if I could just connect the dots the puzzle would make sense.” That’s totally missing the point (I think). I’m talking, simulacra. The copy of a copy of a copy of an edit of and edit that is so mangled you can’t ever be sure what the original is. Is the non-diagenic camera actually that, or is it that, but in some scenes it’s just a reenactment? Did John plant some of the various things he “finds” during the movie, or were they genuine coincidences? Did he intentionally close the windows so the tapes would be damaged, just so he could re-shoot them? Did something supernatural actually ever happen and, if so, is any of the footage of it real (or is it recreated VFX).
It’s hard to say, and that’s the point. In some ways, the film is a bit of the whole "Ship of Theseus” conundrum - i.e., if you take a ship, and slowly replaced every plank, door handle, sail, even if they are similar parts, in the end, is it still the same ship? Even if not, where are we in the process of replacement here, and how far have we strayed from the original product?
From a purely cinematic perspective, there is lots to love here. The film is beautifully composited, carefully constructed, well acted, and well executed. I can’t deny I didn’t feel something for these two characters, and I respect the film as a thought experiment made manifest.
However, I can’t say you should watch this film. It’s neither a puzzle box film with a real solution, nor is it narratively direct enough to provide a sense of a completion. Both of these are by design, and both of these left me feeling - unsettled.
And yet. For some reason, it keeps coming to my mind, perhaps it’s very unsettling nature causing my subconscious to poke and prod, wonder and inspect. Something in the dirt, yes, perhaps waiting to be unearthed, if I just decide to dig a little deeper. Maybe.
Ok, FINE, I’ll watch it again.