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One of the greatest praises that can be offered is that the movies by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are most interesting when you know nothing about them. Starting with this statement makes it necessary to ask why anyone would bother reading this review. Perhaps you shouldn’t, instead simply watch the latest film, “Synchronic”
This narrative on the multi-dimensions cut touched by time, chance and fate combines so many elements that it misses the mark completely. For one, the setup for the premise takes longer than expected. It fails to explore the mindsets of its appealing main characters (New Orleans paramedics, played by Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan, who are trying to solve a series of horrible drug-related deaths) as deeply as it keeps implying. Also, the scale of selfless act in the climax leaves a lot to be desired since the character’s history was given to us without context, rather than allowing us to feel it from within.
Regardless, it sustains the attention considerably more than the majority of the self-proclaimed science fiction films and TV series.
Mackie’s ex-physics student now a paramedic meticulously conducts a personal experiment to illustrate the science behind the technology, noting his actions and making slight changes for best results. Synchronic has more sophisticated features than to explain the premise through dialogues. Even with science fiction works, action and metaphors can work wonders, and nothing proves it better than this film and the proof of how mesmerizingly creative this team was. Instead of breathtaking spectacles or views, this film, and every other from this team is about one thing: Ideas. This film gives an utterly new and unique meaning to ‘having tons of money’, proving it is not a requirement of crafting interesting science fiction, or fantasy.
I relished the lack of knowledge around what “Synchronic” was heading towards, so I will keep my reasoning vague. The direction and motivation the two characters provided me kept my assumption sky-high in terms of action, horror or supernatural thrill. The title was equally astounding to me in the allusion it provided to drug slang rather than time. Turns out at the other end of the metaphor stood a set of bewildering mysteries. Those of you who would rather want to consume the calm side of the taste, with a curve, should pause now.
Spring and The Endless are some of the previous films directed by Benson and Moorhead. These films in particular, along with the directors other works, are exceptional due to the shocking ability to blend two different genres that usually have opposing audiences. Synchronous is yet another balancing act. It begins with an exposition to the titular substance, a single-dose pill-sized, mind-altering designer drug that looks like a condom when viewed from a distance. Steve, the bitter and self-beating intellectual character, is then allowed to find the purpose of the drug.
Now that the process is amalgamated, the film focus switches to the physical experience of the drug, Steve’s perception of time and existence is altered and he begins to feel new things.
The lyricism and mystery are captured in the striking visuals of Moorhead, the film’s cinematographer, where he showcases enchanting broad views of the starry night skies and shifts in consciousness. This is signaled through flash-cuts, “Bringing Out the Dead” style upside down cityscapes, and through slow-motion. There are also “Tenet” imagery, like an ambulance but the motion is moving in reverse.
It is said that the creator of a drug uses a vinyl record and a needle to describe time as concentric rather than linear. This should be showcased in poetry and physics classes. Not only does it prepare us for the experiments that Steve is about to perform, but it acts as a beautifully hopeful image in a movie filled with dread and fear. “Synchronic” is billed as a science fiction thriller dealing with time but as Benson and Moorhead are especially suited to adapting Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five,” it becomes the tale of a man who wishes to unstuck himself in time, first to find Dennis’ daughter who mysteriously vanished after taking the drug at a party and second to escape the emotionally closed off, drug addicted, alcoholic, womanizer version of himself that Jacked under towards the hurricane Kathrine tragedy. It transforms to a more Bein moment. As Mackie plays Steve, he gives off the same energy as war veterans who went on to become detectives and gangsters in postwar crime fiction and film noir. But it is a more hardboiled approach so reminiscent of the genre classics.
The plot pays off for the earlier setup but what it suggests for Steve’s immersion as a Black man in America especially the former Confederate south is why he is a burnout in life who resents his partner’s domesticity and feels as if he is just passing time on the planet. While the movie “Synchronic” continues the story, Steve’s refusal of entry in particular cities and the scattered over racist white people in the time travel scenes, including a Klan hood, a Confederate soldier who assumes Steve is his property, and other elements that are less forgiving suggest that not everything is lost on the audience.”The plot gives Steve body as it pays off the earlier premise without putting it in a clichéd manner. While “Synchronic” has kept its narrative shut from becoming scathingly political and anti-racist, it further refrains quoting Steve specifically being despised in particular cities.
Regardless, the movie “Synchronic” seems to prefer a more broad and undefined variety of alienation which is tied to the feeling that life cannot possibly improve after a trauma of this magnitude (in this case, life-altering Steve’s problems stemming from Katrina), and that everything has been experienced at its peak and everything else is just going downwards (which happens to be Dennis’ view after losing his daughter and wife and having his marriage fall apart).
Moreover, there is a poetic interest in the linear passage of time and the introspection accompanying the loss of a loved one, an opportunity, a span of someone’s life, or even a connection to a particular city or country. Can they truly be categorized as gone forever? Or rather lost, taken, decayed, vanished? Or have they simply changed to a different track on the record? Can we actually locate them? Are they capable of seeing us? Are they even capable of being felt if they’re not physically there?
The film’s apotheosis lies in Steve’s and Dennis’ prolonged conversation about life and death which touches the most emotional and intellectual points of the film, as well as serves as a counter-argument for the defeatist perspective filled with morbid fantasies.
Statistically, you already know how you would die (in a bed and sleeping). But the twist is you cannot predict how your life will progress within the milliseconds of each moment. Life in this perspective is boundless because every moment is guaranteed to be more fresh, alluring and full of adventures than the death scene.
In Steve’s film, he utilized a letter composed by Albert Einstein, where Einstein eloquently put forth regards to his late colleagues. In this letter, Einstein portrayed Besso as having already bid adieu from this bizarre world. Besso was an ex colleague of Einstein and Steve knew too well he would not have had the privilege to unpack notions of relativity or “Synchronic” wouldn’t exist. As Mackie registers grief stricken sorrow while reciting this sentence, you start to sense a sharp bitter edge attached to Steve Owen’s character. In my eyes, this edge deepens like the squalling rest of the story encompasses. And this histrionic grief struck narration is backed by Musk’s looming headstone sealing gossip about this man having lifted the blankets shrouding other’s visions enabling him to glimpse unimaginative vastness.
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