A Paradox (Patreon)

A Glitch in the Matrix (Rodney Ascher, 2021)

I've seen three features and a short from Ascher, but it wasn't until I was halfway through A Glitch in the Matrix that I felt like I'd sort of figured him out. His work is characterized by being, as they say, "very online." He's dealt with whacked-out film interpretations (Room 237), competing theories of sleep paralysis (The Nightmare), the inexplicable horror provoked by 1970s producers' logos (The S from Hell), and now, at last, simulation theory. Both the topics themselves and his treatment of them presumes the global levelling of internet culture, and its collective crowdsourcing of expertise: YouTube poops, creepypastas, chatboard conspiracies, etc. And, well, this is a limitation. (Or it least it will be, until those of us who remember a different world all expire, and grounds for criticism no longer exist.)

Just as The Nightmare essentially placed folktales and scientific research on equal footing, A Glitch has a way of covering over significant distinctions and hierarchies. It's not that Plato and Descartes (or Philip K. Dick) are inherently more authoritative than Jesse Orion or Brother Læo Mystwood. But Ascher makes no attempt to explain why we should consider their purely anecdotal testimony to be more than just incidentally interesting. And while this may seem like a quibble, it actually goes to the heart of the documentary's form. There is a lot of provocative material here, but it only scratches the surface. 

How does simulation theory actually fill a human need for religious longing in an increasingly secular age? How does the "Matrix defense" connect to the new breed of 8chan mass murderers, who see their destruction as a logical extension of first-person shooter realities? How does the concept of the mutable, unstable body relate to the rise of transgender identities (surely relevant, considering the Wachowskis' own choices)? Why does this networked future so far seem to exclude the developing world, and what are the ramifications of this two-tiered reality? Of course, no film could adequately address all this, but then, maybe this is a topic that exceeds the capacities of "film," as normally conceived. The problem is, Ascher doesn't seem to recognize that, because his web-surfing mentality is focused on what's in front of him, and not what falls between the pixels.

Petit Samedi (Paloma Sermon-Daï, 2020)

A frequently compelling documentary that sometimes loses its bearings, Petit Samedi is going to play at this year's True/False, and it should be well-liked by the audience that festival attracts. Typically I'd include myself in that group, and I did admire Petit Samedi, but it does feel a bit like a "True/False" film, in that it assumes that personal portraiture is the best way to address any given social problem (in this case, drug addiction). I am starting to have my doubts about this metonymic assumption, and I find myself more drawn to documentaries that at least attempt to map broader systems of social and political behavior.

All the same, there's an intimacy here can't be ignored. The director is the subject's younger sister, and her film shows a tenderness toward someone at whom a lesser film might look askance. Damien Samedi is his name, and so the title is indeed a pun. The sit-downs with his stern but codependent mother suggest "little Sundays" spent in each other's company, but they are actually tense negotiations between an adult son and his mother. If she didn't dote on him quite so much, Damien might find the will to kick his heroin habit. But this also becomes a handy excuse, the kind that addicts will always find. Still, it's not coincidental that the scenes in which Damien is talking to his therapist, and he is allowed to hold forth without interruption, are the richest and most revealing. If he's going to get clean, he's got to do it alone.