Cult Classic
The Problem Of The Essential Indexical ****
Produced and Directed by John Perry
Reviewed by A. Filem Wänker for Uniformity
This film is a poignant exploration of existential dread and alienation. Entirely filmed in a supermarket under the glare of harsh fluorescent lights, the film follows the plight of the main character, known only as ‘I’, as he navigates the bleak surrounds of his local supermarket. As he shuffles around the supermarket, passing other equally sad and lost characters, I leaves behind him a trail of sugar from a leaking bag in his trolley. This is at once a metaphor for the gradual, unstoppable, decline of the character’s youth and vivacity, and at the same time a depiction of his inability to recognise his own alienation from himself. For as he gradually trails sugar around the supermarket, I wonders from whence the sugar comes. Who, he ponders, could be dropping the sugar? So alienated is he, from the gradual trickling away of his life, that he does not even recognise that it is his own loss he is tracking. Utterly bleak, and at times soul destroying. Four stars.
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