Following up the imaginative Strawberry Mansion with another DIY-style adventure, Albert Birney returned to Sundance Film Festival earlier this year with OBEX, a film that should delight fans of David Lynch and RPG videogames alike. Picked up by Oscilloscope for a release on January 9, the first trailer has now arrived.
Here’s the synopsis: “In pre-internet 1987, Conor and his dog Sandy live a life of seclusion, lost in the slow-rendering graphics of early Macs and televisions aglow with late night horror movie marathons. But when he begins playing OBEX, a new and mysterious, state-of-the-art computer game, he finds himself trapped in a low-tech, but high-stakes analog hellscape as the line between reality and game blurs.”
I said in my Sundance review, “While the likes of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome and Steven Lisberger’s TRON have examined the thrills and fears of humanity’s relationship with screens since the early ‘80s, there’s been a recent, renewed interest as the number of screens in one’s life has ever-expanded. At last year’s Sundance Film Festival, Jane Schoebruen explored identity-forming bonds with media and the eventual curdling nostalgia with I Saw the TV Glow. This year, OBEX finds Albert Birney following Strawberry Mansion with another inventive and lo-fi adventure, but one that finds the director honing in with a more satisfying focus. Even though our main character spends every waking moment in front of a screen, this is no damning screed but an earnest, even poignant look at how entertainment can provide a sense of comfort for the most lonely souls.”
See the trailer below.