Review of Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968) by Rob L — 27 Jun 2010

Perhaps the most striking thing about this 1968 avant-garde documentary is how modern it seems. Reality television and the internet age have desensitized us into this kind of postmodern entertainment, but the way Greaves deconstructs and pulls the curtain on the very process of film-making is still surprisingly startling and fresh. The film crew, who are part of this experiment, goes into great detail picking this entire experience apart, and it's all fascinating, groundbreaking, intelligent stuff.

Still, Symbio goes into lengthy boring dry spells even for a 75 minute feature. It centers around a screen test (a breakup scene in Central Park) you will have to repeatedly watch with different actors. The writing is intentionally shitty to get some sort of response out of the test subjects. A pretty nice docu, if you can take it.