I-Be Area

I'm completely unfamiliar with the work of Ryan Trecartin. I only learned about this film due to its connections to Death Grips.

The second hour is an unwatchable mess. During this "act," the fragments of understandable narrative go totally out the window and the chaotic pace of the editing intensifies. The novelty of this runs thin quickly.

In contrast, I love the first hour of this movie with my whole heart. The editing, camerawork, dialogue and esoteric sci-fi lore of this film is unhinged. It really tickles my ADHD. It's like a dream that feels profound in the moment but is nonsensical when you wake up.

It's an elaborate, colorful, unique shitpost that I love in all of its messy, obnoxious glory. Just stop watching when the timestamp hits 1 hours.

Edit 1; Got the time of the second half wrong, oopsies.

So it's finally happened. I've rated well over a thousand movies and this is the first '1' ever ever given, no joke. I love entertainingly bad movies, I love insane movies, and I tend to find some form of value in even to most horrid pieces of cinema. I don't believe many films are completely worthless. So when I say that this is a horrid abomination devoid of any artistic value whatsoever, I do not take this statement lightly. It isn't every day I find a piece of work I hate with every fiber of my being like I do this wretched bile.

There's a very vague mockery of a plot that somehow involves adoption, clones and body switching but I'm at a loss to explain what really happens and I stopped putting in the effort to pay attention around half-way in. At which point I started regularly checking the clock, then subsequently beating myself in the head as what felt like 20 minutes passed turned out to be around 7. They managed to stretch this nonsense to almost TWO HOURS and it feels like at least triple that.

The actual movie (and I'm stretching when I call it that) is simply a very colorful ensemble of the most obnoxious non-characters you've ever seen spouting an endless stream of meaningless words arranged in a way that vaguely resembles dialogue in irritating high-pitched voices, jumping around the room, dancing, throwing things, and generally being obnoxious. It's like the director just found a bunch of bored art school students and said "Hey! Wanna be in a movie? All you have to do is smear a bunch of paint on your face and act as retarded as possible in front of the camera. You in?".

Randomness can be very entertaining if done the right way. I'm a big fan of shows like Chowder, Tim & Eric and The Eric Andre Show. I love Everything Is Terrible. I like Aqua Teen as much as the next guy. This is a textbook example of randomness done horribly wrong to the point where it physically hurts to watch.

In short, this is not surrealism, this isn't a "mindfrik" (edited for IMDB acceptability), it's not interesting, it's not funny, it's not bad in an entertaining way. This is nothing but a cinematic endurance test. Shaye & Kiki mind as well be on downers when compared to this lunacy. If it wasn't for my stubborn insistence on finishing every movie I watch, I would have turned this off about 30 minutes in. But I felt I had a duty. A duty to power through and give this a proper review in order to warn unsuspecting fans of the bizarre not to be suckered in by the ludicrously high IMDb rating. You have been warned.

It's interesting that Trecartin predicted the onslaught of tumblr culture way before it took full effect on today's youth. The super fast flow of information that speeds by, the information being put out there even if it doesn't make sense or have a real sense of purpose, the penchant for 90s digital art etc. It all accumulates in this massive mish mash of nonsensical vignettes and cut-throat pacing.

The 8 out of 10 you see above is not really accurate, for something as off the wall and bursting with originality as this can not really be scaled from 1 to 10. Most people will hate it or find it funny in the wrong way but there will always be the small minority who see merit in creating a completely challenging and grating experience that shows a new approach reflective of our modern digital society.

Obviously this is too long -- a movie with a pacing like this does not need to have a near 2 hour runtime. In fact, this would have been a more cohesive statement had it ran for only forty minutes to an hour. As the movie follows no linear narrative, it does not need absolutely everything that's been injected into it. The run time flourishes though as a test of patience (play the 'how long can you make it into 'I-Be Area' game with your friends today!).

So as something you sit down, watch and hopefully gain some form of entertainment from this movie fails big time. However, conceptually and creatively, this movie is beyond interesting. There is room in this world for both watchable narratives and rule breaking experimental video art, it is simply your perception of how important one is over the other that determines the worth of this work.

You should know that I have a great deal of patience for extreme films. I watched "The Falls" twice in one day. I dug through Matthew Barney, and patiently dug out some gems. I see merit in the early Jarman stuff. Korrine interests me. I presume that most things I encounter deserve to be considered art and not as a joke. So I am a most likely audience for this.

And I get it: anti narrative, inverted pose, as much subversion of the medium as amateurs can do with cheap equipment.

Art can be challenging, even disgusting. It can be trivial. It can be almost anything to be accepted by me at the elevated level of art.

But it can never ever be tedious and unengaging.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

The first time i watched this I was absolutely flabbergasted, I don't think I even finished it. But yet something kept calling me to it, as something about it was so compelling.

To date I think I've watched it in its entirety probably 20+ times, as each time I find something new to get engrossed in. I-Be Area is more dialogue oriented and linearly paced than his later films, but yet just as explosive.

There's also something magical watching an actor play upwards of five different characters, each more boisterous and out there than the last. Trecartin himself playing about 7.