THREE ENDINGS, 3.26 billion story trajectories, and 380 available remote control clicks.
No, this is isn?t a sixth-grade word problem, but the flexible and ever-changing blueprint of ?Late Fragment? (www.latefragment.com), North America?s first fully interactive feature film.
Produced by Ana Serrano and top-billed by Jeff Parazzo, both Filipino-Canadians at the forefront of this cinematic revolution, the cutting-edge film made its Philippine premier last month at Alliance Francaise, Mogwai Cinematheque and the 10th Cinemanila International Film Festival.
User-driven
Call it a ?Choose Your Own Adventure?-style motion picture for the age of user-driven entertainment. In a way, ?Late Fragment? bridges the shrinking divide between role-playing video games (RPGs) and mainstream cinema. It?s sort of a cross between ?Memento? (Christopher Nolan?s non-linear puzzle film starring Guy Pearce) and Final Fantasy, arguably the best RPG series of all time.
The opening scene: a punkish ?tween stands at the foot of a bed and pulls the trigger. In a single moment, three lives are shattered: an oblivious mother, living in a dark world of denial, is haunted by memories of a dead man; a disturbed security guard who has thrown away his career and the respect of his teenage son; an Asian nightclub dancer who takes masochistic pleasure in ritual sessions of self-abuse.
Meet Faye (Krista Bridges), Kevin (Michael Healey) and Théo (Jeff Parazzo): three strangers whose lives have been fractured by violence. In ?Late Fragment,? their compelling narratives interlock in a rare cinematic experience in which you, the all-powerful viewer, play the active role of director.
All you have to do is wave your digital magic wand?your DVD remote, that is?when it pleases you.
As you self-navigate your way through a sea of twisted plotlines, you uncover their stories and secrets at will, controlling the flow of the elaborate (though albeit depressing) tale.
Inspired by ?Switching,? an interactive film by the Danish Film Institute, and by such non-linear Hollywood movies as ?Crash,? ?Short Cuts? and ?Amores Perros,? the experience is a lot like channel surfing, save for the fact that each channel presents different scenes from the same story.
Super sat down with award-winning French filmmaker Mateo Guez, one of the three creative forces behind ?Late Fragment,? to discuss the groundbreaking film and the future of cinema.
Your film is playing with form in a way we?ve never seen or heard before. The remote control never had this much power.
You?re right. We?re letting the audience decide the trajectory of the film. It?s funny because some people are like gamers and just go click, click, click, click, click, and click?until they realize that it?s not a game!
And the power you?re giving to the audience...
I think it takes four or five viewings before the audience starts to be in control. Because when you watch it for the first few times, you?re going to find it so intense and dramatic that you?ll just sit down and savor the story.
How was the writing done?
I wrote my part while keeping in mind the whole interactivity of the plot. I also constantly met up with my two co-directors. We?d literally cut the pages of the scripts we individually wrote and paste them on the wall so we can mix them up and create multiple story lines.
Have you always had an affinity toward experimentation and edgy material?
Oh no, no, no. I?m kind of an old-fashioned guy. I use 35-millimeter?I like the old way of making movies. As much as I can, I like to stay away from technology.
And yet you did this film.
You see, six years ago, I arrived in Canada and this opportunity came to me. It was not my specialty, but why not? It?s the future!
Let?s talk about the future then. Do you think that interactive films will dominate movie houses someday?
I don?t think digital will kill the old-fashioned way of doing cinema. I think they will co-exist together. Film will never lose its appeal. We will always go back to old forms.
What does ?Late Fragment? contribute to moviemaking?
Film and fast food are similar. Most of the films today do not make people think, similar to how fast food destroys the health. But people are smart. Give them something and they?ll surprise you. That?s what I like about our film. We consider the audience as human beings with brains.
What about the disadvantages of a fully interactive film?
With this type of cinema, we lose the emotional journey of what a film is?the conventional storytelling aspect of film. Too much attention is given to media interactivity. If we get used to making technology the key, we?ll become pretentious and think audiences don?t need the story anymore. But people need emotion.
But what about those people who just want pure entertainment?those who want to watch a film, relax, and not think too much?
Don?t get me wrong. I?m the first one to watch trash sometimes. The 21st century is a century of craziness. But we have to respect the limits of craziness. We have to be careful of overdoing things.
