Have you ever shared an unbelievable, indescribable experience with someone? What if you wanted to capture that experience to show the world? And what if you did, but the importance just struggled to translate to art?
Benson & Moorhead are a directing duo who have released previous indie darlings like ‘Synchronic’, ‘The Endless’, and ‘Spring’. Refusing to be defeated by the limitations of the 2020 quarantine, they made a film that takes place entirely inside/around their apartment in Los Angeles.
When new neighbors Levi & John share a cigarette and a beer, they inexplicably experience a bright light and a floating glass shard in Levi’s living room. Wanting to try to document it, they set up cameras and microphones and try to make a documentary about this phenomenon. Things grow inexplicably weirder and their relationship starts to grow tense as they try to find relevance and meaning behind it.
It’s a mindtrip of a film that placed at #9 in my top 10 of last year. It’s a faux documentary shot within a film that begins to break the boundaries between reality, pseudoscience, and art. They incorporate real life evidence of possible secret societies and extraterrestrial events that may have shaped the design of LA where the apartment is. Fractal patterns, musical dissonance, and electronic interference all mix together to map out a confusing yet entrancing story.
It’s definitely one of their most experimental films to date, but I had an absolute blast watching it. If you’re into weirdness, aliens, or the occult, then there may be more in this than you’d normally bargain for.
4/5
“Something in the Dirt” is currently available on VOD.
‘Til Next Time,
Mike Cleopatra
