Silver Wave Film Festival opens tonight with Entropic.
Jordan Parker (for Parker and The Picture Shows)
To say Entropic isn’t for everyone is less a warning for the squeamish to stay away, but a sentiment for those ready to enjoy an uncomfortable, poignant and difficult experience to settle right in.
There is a specific audience that’s going to go berserk for Entropic, and it’s for film lovers who love the subtle queer nuances of mainstream cinema and the ask from the filmmaker for the audience to suspend disbelief, and give themselves over for the journey.
If writer-director R.W. Gray was trying to absolutely pull me in from the first second the camera rolled, he succeeded. This film about the most beautiful man in the world, who devises an experiment with his college friend to quell the desires of those around him, is both a tale of feeling trapped in one’s own body, and seeks to answer how we free ourselves from the expectations of others.
It’s a sensual, beautiful film, and editor Jon Dewar and cinematographers Matt Rogers and Kaleigh Stultz work with Gray to make the first movie I truly love of this festival.
The film tugged at my emotions, and forced me to delve into my own psyche to ask myself the film’s own central question — What would I do were there no outside influences or expectations pushing me to inevitable outcomes?
To tell you all about the storytelling and the erotic, yearning script from Gray would be to do you a disservice.
It’s certainly not for everyone — with graphic sexual content and some truly unsettling vibes — but if beauty is art, then Entropic has so much layered past its skin deep surface that you have to see it for yourself.
Entropic | November 7 | Tilley Hall, UNB | 7 p.m.
