Iron Lung

[olivermoss]

I enjoyed it!

Before I talk about the movie I want to be meta about the whole hype going on right now. The original game it's based on is low poly, low resolution, almost no dialogue, extremely basic controls and only a few interactions. Extremely few assets at all. There is not one pixel more than is needed. It is the epitome of 'minimum viable product'

This is all you see for most of the game:


The game barely even exists even by indie horror standards. This should be a case study in 'finish your projects'.

How long it took the guy to make it, we don't know. AFAIK he's never talked about it. Was this the result of years of thought on minimalism or a weekend fever dream?

Anyway, I enjoyed the film but I don't know how it will hit with people unfamiliar with indie horror games or

IYKYK

SCP Foundation.

I don't think this was a project designed to escape containment.

Basically, I expect wont hit with most mainstream reviewers and people outside the scene coming to check it out due to buzz, but the large group of teens in the theater with me gathered in the hallway after to start breaking down all the details.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

I also enjoyed it! Alex even did too, even though he's not as into this type of game, though I had him watch a playthrough of the game first so that he'd have at least a bit of a baseline context going into it.

Most of the reviews I've seen say it was too long and that it was confusing... I guess maybe it could have been a little shorter and still fine, but I disagree that it should have been drastically shorter. I think it needed time to build. I also didn't find it confusing. (And I went in knowing the original basic game, but actually hadn't seen the later game update that introduced the computer where most of the lore came from, so all of that was new to me.)

I am wildly impressed with it - I thought it was extremely well done, even though I can understand it not hitting well with a more mainstream audience. It didn't feel "good... for an indie passion project." I thought it was good, no qualifiers!

[olivermoss]

I think they did a good job at showing that tedium sets in even in horrendous circumstances without dwelling on it too long. That's also a risk you can take when fully self funded and can legitimately care about being true to an experience over literally everything else.

This was made for a specific audience, one that will curl up with LPs that are hours and hours long and just soak things in. What some people might see as weakness are just features of this specific type of experience and what Mark was trying to hold true to.

It was interesting that he broke things up visually by having Simon had clothing/aesthetic changes as the film went on, but I did not expect the random leather harness thirst trap!

[mistressofmuses]

Right? I kept seeing criticism saying "ugh, it's so repetitive!" but... it didn't feel repetitive at all. It makes it clear that for the *character*, it's a repetitive, tedious task, despite the danger, but it never felt repetitive for me as a viewer.

But yes, this had a target audience in mind (and that's not just "fans of Markiplier"); like you said, it's aimed at the people who are willing to and interested in soaking in details and implications and hints of broader lore. I think the film did succeed in appealing to and rewarding that kind of audience desire. And it's nice to have that feel rewarded! (More often, I feel like that sort of attention gets burned with a "fuck you for trying to find meaning!")

I thought it did an excellent job of keeping visual interest, with some really interesting cinematography, with cool and varied filming angles, etc. The costume changes were also a good visual refresh! But the leather harness WAS a definite surprise, lmao. Surprise moment of "Oh. Oh, I see."

[olivermoss]

Oh wow, it didn't hit me as repetitive at all.

And you're right, it rewarded a type of viewer that is rarely rewarded. This is all about the details, implications, theories, etc.

There was a lot with the cinematography. Some if it felt like a master class in exactly how much visual information is needed to make things clear. There was one scene where all you see is a slanted reflection of something, and it's all that was needed for that plot point. I forget where it was in the movie, but that mastery of clarity in visual information blew me away

[mistressofmuses]

It was nice to have that sort of desire to dig into the little details be rewarded. There are other films (Sinners comes to mind) where there's a ton of background detail put into the set and costumes and things, where attention to detail is rewarded. But even that's not quite the same.
More often it feels like attempts to really try and sort out implications and tiny details gets met with "fuck you, that didn't mean anything."
(Granted, there's also always the "secret good ending" type of "detail hunting," so... yeah, there are problems on the viewer side, too.)

Yes! There was a ton of great use of visuals. I thought it did a great job of both staying interesting to watch (despite being in one tiny room the whole time) and of yes, that ability to really show the most important pieces of information. That clarity was done really well, and often subtly. It wasn't a clumsy zoom in on whatever they wanted you to notice, the shot itself just made it clear. Loved it.

[olivermoss]

The Secret Good ending people are not engaging in good faith. Even productions meant for that sort of scrutiny are going to have production limitations and stuff they just didn't consider. They can be hard to weed out, and can use actual things that happened, like Jacket Doctor, as camouflage.

I'd just like to see more of a happy medium where audiences aren't treated like they are insane for paying close attention, or missing the point if they even follow continuity. But also an understanding that production limits are a thing and sometimes things just land weird.

[mistressofmuses]

That is true: there's a difference between the bad-faith "this is bad on purpose to secretly be good" detail-hunters and the "I want to suss out the implications and lore" detail-hunters who want to engage with the story that actually exists.

But for real. I am so tired of things treating audiences like idiots who need to have their hands held the whole way (no nuance or ambiguity or hidden details or implications allowed! it must all be as literal and directly stated as possible!) or treating audiences like an adversary (oh, you picked up on the deliberate hints placed in this show? we must change the ending to make it a surprise, because fuck you for paying attention, and it doesn't matter if the new ending sucks and makes no sense.)

But yeah, not every weird inconsistency is a secret hint. (The clock that's barely visible at the edge of the frame didn't move ahead at the exact correct rate for what happened in scene! The book on the edge of the table shifted an inch between scenes! WHAT DOES IT MEAN?) And sometimes it is just a limitation on the production and what they're able to do.

[olivermoss]

Netflix has been really pushing shows that are 'second screen friendly', shows that are background noise for tweeting or just comment fodder. I don't mind reality shows being that way, even though I almost never watch reality TV, but for scripted shows it's crap.

Treating audiences like adversaries is so weird, especially since even in our current era most people watching the shows are totally unaware of the online fandom discussions. It makes for bad TV to respond too directly to that stuff. Dragon Prince pulled apart characters because people were shipping the wrong ships. It's like, what the heck?

I don't know how Conformity Gate went from the Blyer Truther's long planned way to deal with it not happening to a massive internet thing that was totally divorced from anything to do with shipping. But, honestly, I am glad I don't know. I am happy to be out of that loop.

[mistressofmuses]

I don't mind background noise shows. A lot of the true crime stuff like Forensic Files or whatever fits that niche fine for me. A lot of the youtube stuff that Alex watches - news livestreams, or storm chasing, or stuff like that also ends up being the same sort of thing for me. But for a scripted show? Yeah, absolute garbage. Either there's a narrative and writing and progression worth paying attention to, or there's not. If it's not worth paying attention to, then why would I want to watch it at all?

I don't understand why anyone would want that sort of adversarial relationship with a fanbase! Like you said, it's such a small portion of the audience over all, but it's also part of your most engaged fanbase. Treating them like an opponent you want to punish in some way is just... bizarre. Some subset of a subset of fans liked the wrong character, or was excited about the 'wrong' part of the show, so you're going to blow the whole thing up? What?

The way the Conformity Gate thing sort of broke containment was weird. I hadn't heard of it beyond just a passing mention here and there and then it was suddenly EVERYWHERE, and the talk about it started glossing over the shipping aspect. I'm with you - that is a loop I don't feel the need to be in, ha.

[olivermoss]

Conformity Gate was a cope years in the planning. I did my best to just ignore all of it, but during hiatus Blyer Truthers kept invading spaces and when their unhinged BS wasn't tolerated, they'd crawl back to the tag to cry homophobia and have everyone tell them they were brave.

The way the original context just fell off so cleanly is insane to me. I have no idea how that happened. (and I'm glad I don't) Took me a few days to even realize how complete the context loss was.

[mistressofmuses]

I saw at least a handful of badly-behaved Bylers butting in, even as tangential as I was to ST fandom as a whole. It was definitely often unhinged. (And again, the frustrating irony of charging into often very queer-oriented spaces and then crying about how mean and homophobic all the Steddie and Ronance shippers are...)

I very much do not know how the context evaporated, but it was weird to see. You'd talked about some of it here, and then suddenly I was seeing pop-culture articles coming up about it.

[olivermoss]

Yup. Also, they kept shouting that of course all Steddie ficcers wrote Byler as a background pairing in solidarity because of course they did, imagine a Steddie ficcer NOT doing that. When in reality we mostly didn't? They just shouted it was a fandom norm hoping people would believe it, and also baiting people into replying so they could be attacked. Fighty little bastards.

[mistressofmuses]

That's such a weird attitude to me. "Writing something in the background for solidarity." Like... tbh, I wouldn't want my ship written as a "solidarity; eat your vegetables" sort of afterthought. I'd hope that fics that included both pairings included both because the authors genuinely liked both and wanted both in their fic... And that attempt to make it a "fandom default," is behavior I've seen before. Like, if you're writing whatever ship that doesn't "overlap" or "compete" with their OTP, then you MUST include their OTP, because That Is How It's Done. Bleh. Bad behavior.

[olivermoss]

It is weird, and they are literally trying to do the whole 'repeat the lie until people accept it as true' crap. Can we just not?

[mistressofmuses]

Right? "If we say it enough, people will assume it must be true, since 'everyone' is saying it!" Ugh.