Film Review

5.1       Review and critique at least one short film production

Incel, John Merizalde, USA, 2018

Following a student who has been radicalised by the online Incel movement, the character is pushed to the edge until it is implied that he shoots up a college party and kills himself.

The film aims to explore online Incel (involuntary celibate) culture, what it does to young men, and seeks to understand this subgroup of people.

The film is a dramatic character study, that uses a variety of ideas for in universe cameras. Parts of the films are on a webcam, on a phone and film footage of a computer screen. It also uses a lot of camera techniques (like framing and focus) to obscure information, making the film more tense and showing the character’s obscured worldview.

The film begins with the character’s misguided attempts to get a date in a library- we see exactly why he can’t get a girlfriend and we feel scared of the character. It is then revealed that the character is filming this interaction and has gone home to post it on the Incel forum. The rest of the film takes place in the character’s bedroom, by his computer. He films himself making a murder-suicide video, which is interrupted by his friend inviting him to a party. In the last shot we see him leave his room with a loaded gun. We now still don’t agree with the character but pity him for how misguided he has become from looking at this forum and trusting the foul words they say over his real life friends. While he is not forgivable, he is understandable.

The use of sound is fantastic. The film opens in a library, with both characters talking in whispers until the main character gets angry and shouts ‘you sluts are all the same’, coming as a shock from the quiet. The whole film is very quiet, with no music, reflecting the character’s empty, nihilistic worldview.

The editing style is also very minimal, using long continued shots, also reflecting the character’s nihilism. The shots are quite dark and colourless. The settings are quiet, lonely and domestic. Even the props are understated and dark. The gun is an important one, looking like just a black shape but carrying a lot of iconographic power (the casual way it is brought into frame could be a critique on american gun control). The character is dressed in a red dress shirt and black formal trousers. This makes the character look not unattractive, but makes him seem out of place and strange, reflecting the reasons he feels like an incel and why women find him scary. The actors performance was perfect, showing the character as threateningly angry and pitiably pathetic with his hunched over body language and pinched expression.

The film is aimed at people who know about the Incel community but aren’t part of it- those that are part of it probably wouldn’t see the blatant failings of the main character as they don’t in real life. The film shows us the life of an Incel that we’re already curious about, and gives us an honest explanation of why they act the way they do.

I would recommend this film, it is well made and thought provoking, and allows you to draw your own opinions on the character. It also shows a deeper understanding of what it is representing through every technique.