For the Plasma
Nov 26, 2016
(Bingham Bryant and Kyle Molzan, US, 2014, DCP, 94 min)
In a remote house in Maine, two old friends analyze CCTV footage of the surrounding forest to predict shifts in global financial markets. From this cryptic premise grows a lo-fi mind-bender of intimate scale and startling relevance that flirts with sci-fi and horror conventions even as it subverts them. For the Plasma juxtaposes pastoral imagery with surveillance technology, all set to an out-there score by legendary video game composer Keiichi Suzuki of the Earthbound series, and every shade and shadow captured in gorgeous 16mm.
“You’re unlikely to see a more peculiar debut than [the] sneakily cryptic For the Plasma…it offers many pleasures, but no single interpretation, and that open-ended state is a liberating alternative to anything else in recent American cinema.” –Eric Kohn, Indiewire
“For the Plasma is a modest project of big ideas: about solitude, collaboration, conspiracy, magical thinking.” –Melissa Anderson, Artforum
“For the Plasma delivers a dry New England strain of crazy, set in a serene seaside village in Maine…The smooth yet floaty direction sublimates the rocky, implacable landscape into something disturbingly ethereal.” –Richard Brody, New Yorker
Praise for the soundtrack:
An aural sensation ... enchanting." –Jason Ooim, The Playlist
"Infectious ... exuberant and jovial, foreboding and mysterious." –Kevin Rakestaw, Film Pulse
"Synth-heavy music — sometimes bouncy and playful, other times cascading and unsettling — provides jagged, beguiling accompaniment to a story that drifts along to its own blissfully idiosyncratic tune." –Nick Schager, Variety