Thurs Mar 7 — 7 pm

1hr 31min
SciFi / Tragicomedy

Preceded by:

The Afterlifetime of Colm Feore

Filmmaker Sophie Linnenbaum makes an inventive debut with The Ordinaries, a political satire set in a parallel cinematic world. In a repressive three class-society, Paula, a simple Supporting Character, is about to face the most important test of her life: she must prove she deserves to be a Lead. The director says of her delightfully imaginative debut: “At the core of constructing The Ordinaries lies a pivotal inquiry: ‘How do we narrate our stories, and about whom do we choose to narrate?”

Like a higher God above, her characters are existing for the entertainment of an unknown viewer. Their lives are determined by a personal “musical score,” “cuts” and “monologues.” The inhabitants are divided into main characters, side characters and the lowest ranks, film mistakes, miscasts, and even worse, outtakes. Unleashing a series of references, visual homages and nerdy film jokes unto the viewers, Linnenbaum has a lot of fun in creating a parallel universe, in which our fondest film memories and cliches serve a deeper, darker purpose of retraining our gaze.

The Ordinaries is a splendid and clever film which gives those who cannot speak a voice to display their perspective and suggests that beyond any façade is a truth that is more powerful when it is confronted and accepted. There’s something about Sophie Linnenbaum’s debut film that takes your breath away. It’s probably the way it takes this meta-cinema “film within a film” trope to higher concepts with ease and awe. There are echoes of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and the magic realist social disobedience of The Cassandra Cat, as well as staples such as Peter Weir’s The Truman Show, but Linnenbaum’s work is unique despite a level of familiarity.