I guess I’ve seen the first screening of this film in Berlinale. I just noticed that it doesn’t even have a movie poster as of this moment. After some time, it was the first film where I attended a Q\/A session with the director and the actors. My first non-open-air-cinema Berlinale experience after the compensation screenings in 2021.<\/p>\n
It tells the story of a teenage girl during the pandemic spending her time at home while watching a YouTube influencer (Patricia Coma) videos, doing video calls and Zoom discussions about serial killers with her close friends, dreaming of some sitcom plays with her dolls and spending the nights in a forest in her dreams\/nightmares where she re-encounters people from her virtual daily life. Her story is covered with a prologue of experimental lockdown short by Bonello and an epilogue from some found-footage about the climate crisis, both subtitled with a letter by Bonello to her daughter underlining the hopes about a better future.<\/p>\n
The whole film felt like a series of random and inspirational decisions taken by the director in terms of the plot-building. I can’t say that I got a cohesive understanding but the state of mind and the need for the instantaneous intervention to the pandemic effect was transmitted well enough. As an intrigued viewer, YouTube, amateur celebrities, niche messenger communities deserve more attention in cinema and literature in my opinion.<\/p>\n
The vast imaginary realm that Patricia Coma (Julia Faure) brings to the film was immersive. Replicating this kind of action with an intermediary device (such as transposing a YouTuber to a film character) is mostly a hard thing to do but when it’s succeeded, it pays off. The favorite scene of mine was during the Zoom call that the protagonist makes with her friends while Patricia was watching them in the movie theater. At first, it may look like a cheap alienation tactic but it worked quite well in this scene while the Zoomers were having a disturbingly violent conversation that invites the audience as a spectator to a private chat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"