You Are Here

What Mitchell said:

The movie I recommended is one that was written and directed by my cousin, Daniel. I was lucky enough to be invited to watch it at the Toronto International Film Festival. At the time, I had a cough and took a bunch of cough syrup – I didn’t want to be that guy who coughs in a theatre, especially on my cousin’s big day. Whether the cough syrup enhanced my viewing experience, I don’t know. Anyway, I think the movie is weird, stylish, creative and dark… much like my cousin.  Was some of the film over my head? Yes. I’m very proud of my cousin and his work. I guess I should also say that this recommendation came up as a result of a conversation over beers where the subject of bionic eye replacement came up.

Mike’s verdict:

Before getting into You Are Here specifically, I require a short digression (it will become relevant later on).  I typically divide films into three basic categories. These categories are not heavily fortified silos into which all films must fit perfectly, in fact most films rest somewhat awkwardly across all three. But, as a typically apophenic human-being, I see patterns in the universe and tend to categorize things according to those patterns.  In the film world, the overarching patterns I see can be summed up as entertainers, informers and artists.

The entertainers span many film genres – mysteries, dramas, comedies, anything really – but are characterized by a clear intention to serve as a break from reality.  Such movies might have an underlying message, or they might not, but either way their main goal is to help the audience escape to another universe. Entertainers don’t have to express any special meaning, nor do they need to even make sense; they just have to distract the audience from their own lives for a short time.  On the other hand, the informers do have a specific and deliberate message.  This message might be difficult to understand, or it might be very clear, but the goal is to use film as the medium through which an idea may reach as wide an audience as possible. Informers don’t have to be entertaining, but they do have to hold the audience’s attention and they need to be successful at getting their point across – merely having something to say is useless if it isn’t expressed clearly.  Entertainers and informers are entirely audience-centric; without the audience they have no reason to exist.  However, the final category – artists – has absolutely no need for an audience at all.  These are films that may or may not have a message, may or may not be informative, and may or may not be entertaining. The goal of these films is simply to be something different; to exist as something that has never existed before and that can never be replicated.

Generally, I am not a fan of artists. There are of course some exceptions, but on the whole I expect that a film will entertain me or at least provide me with new ideas to think about. Bonus points for accomplishing both.  If I am to play the part of audience, then I expect the film to acknowledge me as the audience.  I do not like being the passive recipient of useless originality.

You Are Here starts with an interesting challenge. A lecturer, seemingly already deep into a philosophical discussion of consciousness and self-awareness, projects a laser pointer onto a film depicting waves.  He instructs the audience members to explore the waves in the film and be mindful of the red dot, but cautions them not to allow the dot to dictate where they look.  This is a simple but clever illustration of how human-beings are utterly incapable of resisting influence. If you follow the red dot, you lose. If you deliberately look away from the red dot, you still lose. And if you are trying to do what the lecturer has asked, then you’ve already lost before the red dot on the screen even becomes a consideration – the lecturer is the red dot that you should resist.

These notions of self-awareness and consciousness come through as core themes of each of the film’s loosely connected narratives.  First, there are the “movers”, who go from place to place simply because that is what they are meant to do. They have thoughts and questions, but are evidently incapable of stopping, or at least incapable of choosing to stop.  There are also the “trackers” who diligently record the positions of the “movers”. They are clearly distressed when a “mover’s” actions are unexpected, but simply continue to record positions anyway.  Then there is the human logic gate who receives questions, follows instructions that he does not comprehend, and returns correct results. There is an individual drawn to a mysterious door, endlessly looking for a way to reach it, simply because it’s there.  There is an “inventor” of an electronic eye who convinces everyone in the world to have completely functional eyes replaced, only to be forced forever to see what the “inventor” sees. And finally, there is the “archivist”, who meticulously archives objects that she finds, not because anyone asked her to, but because it’s just what she does. In each case, the people involved appear to have self-awareness – they appear to be conscious of what they are doing, and they recognize when there is a deviation from what they believe to be the normal procession of events.  But they do not know why they are performing their actions. They are simply machines receiving input and returning output.  If they have self-awareness, if they are conscious, it hardly matters – either way they do not have agency.

The idea that humanity is guided irresistibly by an unknown influence is further reinforced by the conclusions to the above narratives.  When one of the “movers” chooses a different path (reaching for a red ball!) he is struck and killed. When the searcher of the mysterious door gets too close, the door become forever blocked. When society puts the eye inventor in jail, everyone is forced to see only the inside of the jail.  When the “archivist” shows a glimmer of awareness beyond her simple role by attempting to make sense of the objects she collects, she suddenly finds herself a “mover” instead. And just to dispel any possible idea that these people are somehow different from the rest of us, the film makes clear that we are all interchangeable “Alans”. You are here, in the film.

We are all driven by the same outside forces, down whatever paths we are on, and the fact that we may or may not be truly conscious of ourselves is substantively irrelevant.

A gloomy outlook, indeed.

Still, any film that asks me to spend time thinking about such weighty philosophical concepts as self-awareness, consciousness and personal agency will be pushed strongly towards the informer category, with leanings into the entertainer space too.

There’s just one problem – You Are Here is apparently not about such weighty philosophical concepts as self-awareness, consciousness and personal agency.  According to the writer, the film may be about anything from technology-induced anxiety, to some unspecified despair, or even vague hope.  I can accept a certain amount of ambiguity in this type of film; after all, ambiguity is a feature of philosophy not a bug.  But in order to succeed as an informer, a film must be able to clearly articulate its message – and to do that it must first have a clear message to articulate.  Either You Are Here is lacking a clarity of vision, or it has simply failed in its attempt to express that vision. In both cases, it’s a disappointment. It’s not enough for a film to express an interesting idea – that idea has to have been expressed intentionally.  I can give part marks for getting the right answer, but I’m not happy with the work that led to it.

So where does that leave us?  I can’t call it an informer without also criticizing it for failing to properly realize its vision.  But at the same time, I think it would be a disservice to drop it in the artists category – whatever its faults, ignoring the audience is not one.

So that leaves me with entertainer.  You Are Here is entertaining.  I just wish I could have told the writer what it was about before he had given interviews.

Six points for the film on its own, plus an extra two points for accidentally giving me something to think about.

8/10