Even by British independent film standards and a desire to go even more left-field and radical, audiences are certainly going to have their hands full watching Marcus Flemmings’ brand-new offering PALINDROME, which played as one of the main evening films at the London Independent Film Festival 2020.
It is a truly crazy and weird film and probably could be a cinematic palindrome as the title suggests. Part black comedy, part psychological, part socio-political drama, with a hint of a gangster film based on one sequence. Shot in both colour and monochrome, the emotional and visual shifts are substantial throughout.
Plot-wise, it’s the story of a troubled young black man in London, Fred (Jumaane Brown)Â (who is called Friend by one member of a gang who intends to rob a convenience store) who is phoned at home by a mysterious female artist called Anna (Sarah Swain) who asks him to look her up on the internet before she tops herself.
However, Fred is undergoing psychological evaluation by an oppressive Doctor, Gladstone (Daniel Jordan) with electric shock treatment and the challenges of dealing with his own mental state, not to mention whether not he can save ‘Anna’. Questions abound in his mind, as well as from those, including a mystery woman who inhabits a library he gets books from…
Now, that is the of the narrative that this critic gets from the film and it is a surreal and strange experience to say the least – and a movie that you may have to watch two or three times to appreciate all the creative and visual ideas that the director has at the heart of his work.
It is essentially a story of two narratives – Fred’s own desire to be sane again amidst very extreme reflection and Anna’s own last hours before she tries to carry out her demise.
The issue sometimes is that every story told in a film can have potential within its’ own arc and the conflicting stories here can work on their own terms. Having two protagonists facing their own issues in a parallel universe, which is what the director here aspires to, can sometimes impact on the effectiveness of the film’s overall experience that audiences can have.
There is a wealth of comment and thought here which could sustain a movie or ten – and with references to the relativity of early and premature death and characters wearing Nigel Farage masks at one point, PALINDROME gets all the more left-field as it progresses, with more characters entering the fray that could sustain yet another genre-based story for ninety minutes, with a hint of noirish social satire.
Without question, a movie destined to polarise and divide people – and given the radical ideas, the plot might even be irrelevant, as the film can also work as a wild card visual dream.
PALINDROME screened as part of the London Independent Film Festival 2020
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