As the introductory film to Elements of Screen Arts, Schizopolis floored me for a number of reasons, making me label it as a thoroughly entertaining watch. Its lack of an implicit plot pushes the viewer to look at the individual aspects that make up the film, and these features are unconventional enough that one can recognize them off the bat and make judgments based on their effect.
That being said, I found the entirety of the film incredibly weird and hilarious, and I loved every second of it. At the onset, I looked at it as a commentary on corporate and married life, and I thought it made several points. Apart from this, though, the film also made a whole lot of nonsense appealing, which is unconventional in my personal trajectory of film-watching.
I found that the film’s characters – a corporate employee, his adulterous wife, his insecure coworker, and his alternate self, among others – can shift from being understandable and relatable at one moment to being completely absurd at the next. This was a dynamic I was not prepared for but genuinely liked, as I was forced to look at their nuanced characteristics instead of trying to make sense of the nonsense they were projecting.
Schizopolis’s worldbuilding worked well for me in relation to its other elements, in that its mundane setting further accentuated the weirdness that was happening throughout the film. The depiction of these characters moving through their pedestrian circumstances was playful and unique, and this mismatch was what the film had going for it.
The film’s dialogue worked in a similar fashion, in that some sections were truly incomprehensible, but allowed me to look at the tone and emotion that they attempt to convey or evoke. In this regard, I felt the emotions in a new kind of way. This technique unexpectedly made the emotions more potent.
Apart from the film’s technical merit, it also evoked in me a certain cognitive dissonance. I have dedicated my life to storytelling and the impact of words, but this film showed me that language can mean nothing and still convey something! In truth, that made me uncomfortable, but I cannot discount its reality.
This unique approach to filmmaking kept me hooked for the entire time, its richness in absurdity making me want to know what will happen next. For some viewers, this method might seem standoffish, but I liked it for how it deliberately throws all conventions out of the window in trying to depict conventional realities. This tension reveals the film’s charm and genius.
Elements of Screen Arts (2019) 