2018 ended, and the last film I saw was Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, released on December 28, and that was and still is one of the biggest events in the world of entertainment, not only because it is Black Mirror, one of the best series of today, but also because it is an interactive film produced by Netflix and directed by David Slade.
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Year: 2018
Category: Interactive Science Fiction.
Director: David Slade.
Cast: Fionn Whitehead, Will Poulter, Asim Chaudhry, Craig Parkinson, Alice Lowe, Fleur Keith, Tallulah Haddon, Laura Evelyn, Catriona Knox, Jonathan Aris, Paul Bradley, Alan Asaad, Suzanne Burden, Jeff Minter.
Plot
Stefan Butler, a young programmer, works on Bandersnatch, an interactive video game, his only mission is to finish it, however, things get a little complicated when he starts to think that he does not have control of himself.
Opinion
In 1984, in England, Stefan Butler, a young programmer who lives with his father after his mother died in an accident, wants to make his own adaptation of Bandersnatch, a book written by Jerome F. Davies in which is conceived the creation of a video game that allows the player to interact and make decisions, creating a game experience that depends and changes according to the decisions made by the user.
Stefan decides to go to the facilities of Tuckersoft, a video game company where he meets with Mohan Thakur, the director, and with Colin Ritman, a famous and talented programmer that works for the company. There he talks about Bandersnatch and shows them a demo, Thakur fascinated by the idea proposes Stefan to put Colin and a team at his disposal. Accepting or rejecting the offer, no matter what decision is made, the fate and nature of Stefan and his relationship with his world will change dramatically.
I do not even know where to start, I have a sense of indecision in regard to this film, on the one hand, I think some things that they tried to do are really great, on the other hand, I also feel that they stayed halfway, that the interactive experience could have been better, eliminating the unimportant decisions like that of the cereal or the tape, so that the plot will advance more smoothly, leaving room for important decisions
The story is quite simple, a guy who wants to program a video game but while he does feels that loses the control of his life. Everything revolves around Bandersnatch, apparently the programming of the game, and even more, its commercial success, is the main indicator of the story.
The image and visual aesthetics of the film are very good, it manages to maintain an environment of the 80s despite filming everything in enclosed spaces. David Salde, the director, whose work I know from Open House, third episode of the fourth season of Breaking Bad, and an episode of Black Mirror, Metalhead, the fifth of the fourth season, which is referenced in the film by placing a poster in the Tuckersoft offices, does a very good job but not perfect. The soundtrack is great, I can not get out of my head the song played by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Relax, and I bet many others who saw the movie either.
The performances are convincing, Fionn Whitehead does an acceptable job, although maybe he could have offered more of himself, anyway it's the first time I see this actor in action. Will Poulter on the other hand simply did an amazing job, took advantage of his minutes on the screen and did it in an extraordinary way, his performance was undoubtedly the best in the film. The other actors accompany relatively well, but they go under the radar.
At the end I feel like the video game critic who appears on Stefan's TV screen, the criticism I make is basically the same as he repeatedly makes about Bandersnatch, the game is short, it's a good attempt, but it's not it reaches to transcend and aspire to be something else, it could have been the best Black Mirror episode due to its condition, but it was not like that. Regarding the issue of interactivity, I must say that I felt a little cheated, having to backtrack at certain times, being forced to take paths that I rejected originally, it seems to me an error, in that sense the film ends up looking more like a game than to a movie.
On the other hand, I must also warn that the decisions taken not only change the development of the story, but the understanding of the universe of which the protagonist is part, that is, the decisions have retroactive effect on the past of the protagonist, a decision can make the universe in which the protagonist develops arbitrarily change.
Finally, I must say that it is a good job, I have listened to the opinion of others, and although I listened to people who did not like anything, most are satisfied with the work done, in my opinion, the work was good, but I think the the attractiveness of the film resides in the novelty that results from a product with interactive features in the cinematographic environment, rather than in the story that is being narrated.
Trailer
Score
7/10
A film with different characteristics, if you have Netflix I recommend to try it, it is possible that this film, as House of Cards did, started a new era of commercial entertainment via streaming.
