Split City, Schizopolis

I’m never an avid moviegoer. As much as I love watching films, it’s financially taxing to be at the cinemas catching the latest films. However, I’d say I have watched a lot of films. I’ve had my fair share of weird films. There have been some films that were told in a nonlinear narrative. Some told in medias res that relied heavily on flashbacks. Schizopolis was a film that showed three perspectives on three different acts. However, the film isn’t as easy to describe nor understand.

Weird isn’t even a word to describe the film. I can barely make sense of majority of the film, let alone the film as a whole. Even when the class would laugh, I wouldn’t join in just because I kept on trying to make sense of the film as a whole. This isn’t to ignore the warning prior to the showing of the film. Before I knew it, I just wanted to make sense of things, no matter how vague the connections were. I kept on guessing how the film was being told – from whose perspective, in what order of events, which is who.

At one point, I thought I was beginning to understand the film. Never mind the repetitive utterances of “nose army” which I still don’t get up to this point. All I know was that Fletcher’s wife was cheating with his doppelganger? And that his doppelganger left his wife for the wife’s doppelganger. And that there was this guy in an orange suit who, at one point, broke the fourth wall. I can try and make sense of a few parts of the film but never a big chunk. If any, I almost got frustrated at my lack of understanding that I almost gave up watching. Also, being seated in front gave my neck some serious amount of stress.

If there was anything in the film that was able to elicit some kind of emotion from me aside from confusion, it was the fact that the wife readily left Mr. Fletcher and their child for the doppelganger. She’s the only character I can describe with a bit of certainty and it’s that she’s a very selfish character. I’d say it served her right though when Dr. Korchek, Fletcher’s doppelganger, left her for Attractive Woman #2, her doppelganger. It was kind of ironic but very funny.

After watching the film in class, I tried to search about the film’s plot that would help me understand what the film was about. Never had I been so disappointed. Even though I didn’t really make so much sense of the film, my favorite part was the scene between Mr. Munson and his wife. “Generic greeting.” “Generic greeting returned.” It just seemed too skeletal. It had the structure but lacked the contents.

Before watching Schizopolis, I didn’t think I’d find a film as mind-numbing or weird as the ones I’ve watched before like Predestination (2014) or Split (2016). I have never been so wrong. Schizopolis numbed my brain for the most part of it.