Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles

I wish I had some knowledge of the Toynbee tiles before I had watched this, simply so that I could have felt more of the emotions that the filmmakers must have felt. But even knowing nothing, I was completely consumed by the subject and although part way through I started to wonder if I actually wanted to know the answers to the questions being asked, the end satisfied both my curiosity and my reservations.

It would be difficult to describe without giving too much away but I experienced an exquisite moment when my mind slipped half a second ahead of the narrative as a penny dropped momentarily before the narrator spoke. I had a smile on my face for the rest of the film.

I'm sure that this will not suit many people but for me it was wonderful and inspiring.

The rise of the internet in the 1990s suddenly gave people the ability to talk and form communities about all kinds of weird niche hobbies and mysteries that, as isolated individuals, they previously had to muse over in silence. One of these, I remember, was the "Toynbee Tiles", linoleum squares left on the streets of Philadelphia over these years that contained the cryptic message "Toynbee idea in Kubrick's 2001 Resurrect dead on planet Jupiter". (It's an odd American analogue to the mysterious man in Australia who used to go around scrawling "Eternity" everywhere.) The Toynbee tile maker was obviously a nutter, but in spite of much speculation among enthusiasts who would upload photos of tile sightings and try to riddle out the message, his or her identity remained a mystery... until this 2011 documentary film.

RESURRECT DEAD tracks the work of an investigative team of nerds as they put together the pieces of Toynbee sightings from the late 1970s to the present, ultimately identifying the tile maker with an overwhelming degree of accuracy. These are Justin Duerr, the main face of the film, along with Colin Smith and Steve Weinik. Justin Duerr strikes this viewer as rather autistic, and his consuming interest in collecting Toynbee tile information and social awkwardness fills every frame. (I might not be the only one who thinks that his jerky mannerisms and obsession resemble cinema auteur Wes Anderson.) But Duerr is also an artist, and he's so curious about the Toynbee tile maker because he recognizes in the man, mentally ill though the tiler might be, a fellow artist and creative individual.

The Toynbee tiler wasn't just leaving tiles. For a time in the 1980s, he would drive around Philadelphia broadcasting his theories over pirate radio. In the middle portion of RESURRECT DEAD, the trio of investigators make contact with radio enthusiasts who prove to have had some limited contact with the tiler back in the day. As the film ends, they have traced the tile maker to a Philadelphia address that belongs to a paranoid recluse. He refuses to answer the door, but his neighbours provide key information, like the fact that his car has a hole in the floorboard, presumably to drop the tiles surreptitiously. The decision to name this recluse might upset some viewers, but besides that single knock on the door and a mailed letter, the filmmakers don't try to intrude on his life, and they decide to just let him be, basking in the satisfaction that they've solved the mystery.

I was intrigued by the tiles when I first came across the Toynbee tile community on the early web, around 1995 or so, and though I was never an obsessive like these filmmakers, the idea of the Toynbee tiles remained in the back of my mind as a quirky mystery over the years. While I was happy to discover that everything is now clear, I was disappointed by this documentary film. Its 90-minute length has a lot of filler, like dumb slow-motion replays of the group looking stunned as they learn key facts. Justin Duerr's narration to the camera is chock-a-block with "like", "uh...", "so...", "you know..." -- could he have not thought more clearly what he was going to say for his own film? Ultimately, I commend these investigators for their achievement, but anyone curious about the Toynbee tiles should just read the bare facts as laid out in 5 minutes' reading of press coverage of the investigation, or on everyone's favourite online encyclopedia. Sitting through an hour and a half of this doc just feels like wasted time.

In today's world true mysteries are hard to come by. It seems now if you can't figure out something you simply hop on a computer and do a Google search to find the answer. For example, recently I was stumped by a plague of fruit flies in my house and couldn't seem to get rid of the pests. So after about 3 days of annoyance I jumped on my laptop and typed "how to get rid of fruit flies?" and as easy as that there was recipe to create your own homemade fruit fly trap using a glass, paper and some juice. Mystery solved! In Resurrect Dead the film-makers were stuck in actual mystery that could not be solved with a simple internet search. They dived into a mystery that seemed impossible to solve. For years they were dumbstruck to how the existence of these tiles had ended up on the streets of many metropolitan areas in the eastern seaboard of the US. The documentary brilliantly paces itself into all the years of research, dead ends, and small glimpses of possibilities that shouldn't be ruled out. For me I was enthralled with their logical approach and deduction of where these tiles were coming from and what their message meant. In a way the documentary really motivated me have a mystery to solve in my life. Or an overarching goal that drives me to find what is the truth in this situation? Today it's easy just to go through the normal phases of life and just exist in the norm of what the world says is a good life. But I think we all have unique opportunities that sometimes come in the form of mysteries that only we can solve!

I can't count how many times I have watched this. It has got to be one of the best documentaries I have ever seen in my life. From beginning to end it absolutely captivates me and there aren't many movies or documentaries that do it like this one does. It is just thrilling. The mystery in this (which never truly gets solved) is one of the most intriguing aspects of it and it never lets up. It is very well made in every way. The soundtrack is phenomenal, it has an amazing atmosphere that's inescapable, it has an array of incredibly interesting characters that we get to know, there is also a few scenes with some pretty interesting hand drawn art that's incorporated throughout. I cannot recommend this enough. If you are into street art, treasure hunts, mysteries, or just documentaries in general you HAVE to watch this.

Resurrect Dead is one of those fascinating documentaries that highlights a mystery you really should have heard of. In Philadelphia and all over North/South America, strange tiles have been popping up for around 20 years. These tiles have a mysterious message and show up in the middle of the road where it would be almost impossible to place. Nobody seems to know who or why these messages are being left. A group of people have gradually over the years come together and investigated the mystery. Resurrect Dead is such a spooky little film. Not in your usual horror film kind of way, but just in the way the mystery unravels. They find out more and more, and to truly discuss it would also be to ruin it. As a documentary it is far from professional. Often the way talking heads were framed distracted me from what was being said. Its biggest success comes in its ending, where it gives us enough of an answer, but still leaves enough mystery.