Review of Stereo (Tile 3B of a CAEE Educational Mosaic) (1969) by Augusto A — 07 Jul 2008

The photography is beautiful and Cronenberg's approach to the storytelling is certainly interesting, but ultimately it falls into the trap of so many film student's or young filmmaker's firsts, that of being way too experimental and reliant on psycho-philosophical babble for its own good.

I think it was Cronenberg's intention to have the audience assume a distant position of scientific observer throughout the film based on his approach, but I grew so detached from everything that by the 30 minute mark I couldn't care less about the conclusion.

Although I love how the character's story is told completely without dialogue and the only spoken words are in the form of the documentary style narration, I wish there was some development of a stronger personal attachment to them, so I could actually care about what they were going through.

That said, I really like the final scenes. It's amazing that they contain so much emotional weight after the coldness that preceded them, but I do believe that was intentional. It could work very well as an intro to a screening of THX-1138.