In Bright Axiom

So apparently american culture has created a disjointed society which in turn has produced enough lonely and bored people, desperate for connection and meaningful experiences, that their needs could be capitalized on by a company providing a secret society or -depending on how you look at it- "cult" experience. Art is essential, so is a sense of belonging and good intentions are laudable, still I cannot help but feel perturbed by the fact that someone came up with this idea and others bought into it.

While it's ambitious, interesting, and a manifestation of a true talent's development, I'm left sure of only one thing: The people behind this are most likely quite insufferable...

Not sure if this was a real doc or a moc-doc, but whichever it was - it was weird. A group of "artists" who seemed like folks on the social fringe: mental issues, self esteem issues, the kind of people ONLY others like them would even bother with...cause they were all so weird and out there.

This plays like a bunch of wannabe actors got together and pooled their money to make the movie they were never cast in due to a lack of talent. Surely some of them were conned, but they expect the rest of us to buy their con as well. Maybe out of some sense of shame? If I can con you into joining my hipster cult, I'll feel less shame that I got conned? Regardless, this is less documentary and more shameless performance art. And bad performance art at that.

If you're curious whether or not this movie is any good, please note over on Rotten Tomatoes, this fil has a 76% Tomatometer rating and an Audience score of 80%. Neither rating is bad.

But over here, we have a bunch of reviewers whining about how the people in the movie who have faced difficulties in life are "weird." One reviewer said, "A group of 'artists' who seemed like folks on the social fringe: mental issues, self esteem issues, the kind of people ONLY others like them would even bother with...cause they were all so weird and out there." Guess what? Weird artists like that are behind every form of entertainment you enjoy.

This is obviously a mockumentary because the film's special effects blend in with the supposed reality. This is hard to explain unless you see the movie, but suffice to say the interesting experiences this "secret order" puts its initiates through would not be nearly as immersive if the director wasn't using special effects to enhance the experience. For example, there is a scene where someone opens a book of blank pages and suddenly there is an animated story superimposed with special effects and a voice over narration. Obviously, this was done by the filmmaker, which means that none of that actually happened in reality. This means the whole scene is basically bogus: the prop designers created the interesting environment, but it was only finished when the special effects were added in the movie. That means the initiate was just sitting there in a cool-looking room looking at blank pages. Pretty funny oversight if they were trying to actually fool anyone.

But, the idea of the film is pretty well done overall and is a really interesting concept. If it was actually real and the film was just a document of it, that would have been a really interesting film about a really interesting group. Most people would be too freaked out to even get past the first test, which would make it a fairly elite secret society in a certain way. However, since it's just completely fake, I find it less interesting and can't give it more than a 5.