Immersive cinema is a concept I am still trying to understand and come to terms with. Generally, immersive cinema is recognized as a way of consuming cinema that allows the audience to engage with it through extended or virtual reality, metaverse environments, or 3D content. However, I would argue that cinema as it is already is immersive. The medium of film has long been well thought of as immersive due to its potential to trigger emotional responses in audiences. Thus, its place in cinema as a whole poses a question that can only be answered as the medium extends and develops in the coming years.
A film purist would define film as something along the lines of an audio-visual medium of narrative or experimental storytelling that utilizes or experiments with existing film languages. Would it then be fair to call Virtual Reality (VR) integrated films as films when the film language in question is not fully in practice?
Firstly, it may be useful to define what VR films are and how they work. The integration of VR in films aims for virtual presence or telepresence, which employs a multimedia (sound, vision, and/or touch) to stimulate the sense of being present in an isolated space; a Virtual Reality. One of the programs Minikino Film Week 9 (MFW9) pass holders were open to experience during the festival was a Virtual Reality Room. In a room on the third floor of MASH Denpasar, attendees can register to watch multiple VR films: Cycle of Violence (Felicia Bergström, 2022), Kindred (Bambou Kenneth, 2022), Lockdown Dreamscape VR (Nicolas Gebbe, 2022), and Surfacing (Affiorare) (Rossella Schillaci, 2022). Among these films, one that called out to me the most (and watched) was the last one.
For one, Surfacing is a documentary, arguably the more stripped-down type of film. It creates a fitting juxtaposition when collated with the form of the recent VR (short) film. Secondly, the film is 20 minutes 35 seconds long. In short film standards, that duration is on the longer side (this depends on who you ask, of course). Minikino Film Week itself applies a maximum duration of 25 minutes for standard short films at the festival. As the form is fairly new (has been for a while now), the decision to make it long would mean an experimentation on Schillaci’s part as a filmmaker. Third, the film is a quiet observation of a prison and custody institutions filled with children and mothers. This mundaneness of the camera’s objects and act of observing through and to space is a contrast to the assumption that VR media is expected to offer content that is stimulating and engrossing. After all, VR media is said to be ahead of conventional media in the way it immerses its audience through its unique offers of spatial awareness and telepresence.
When I say that VR films are a departure from “film” films, it is so in the sense that: the form is not constrained to a flat 2D screen, it does not allow for communal viewing, and it releases a degree of power on what and where to look otherwise fully preserved for the filmmaker to its viewer. As I was watching Surfacing, I experienced loneliness and isolation, a sense of power over where to look, and a wonder over where the director wanted me to look (it was probably what was ahead of me). I was stuck between watching a film and experiencing a theme park ride. Except, Surfacing portrays a subject matter specific to reality, so the experience also intertwined with my expected reactions when watching any documentaries.
Surfacing confounded me. My perception of VR films shifted because of it. VR films no longer seem like a response to audiences’ positive reactions to the highly digitalized and saturated commercial movies, no longer appear to be an extension of mere entertainment. In witnessing the hallways of a prison filled with mothers and children and their imaginations through the vessel of VR, I finally understood what VR can do as a sympathy machine.
After a few clicks on the internet, I experienced an “oh” moment when I discovered Rossella Schillaci is a filmmaker and visual anthropologist. More than a VR film, I regard Surfacing as more of an experimental documentary. The form is an extension of her experimentation pushing the boundaries of the film form. To call it a VR film above an experimental documentary film would mean its film aspects are merely borrowed to fulfill the objectives of VR. This implies that this film’s objective is to support the idea that VR films are where film is heading as “the last medium,” as VR filmmaker Chris Milk puts it, a medium that resembles “real life”—which Surfacing is not about.
To me, the only way VR films are justified is when their VR element is used as a tool to enhance a filmmaker’s vision rather than an objective for The New Medium. In the case of Surfacing, the film intends to make us reflect on the power we bear as audience to our subjects by immersing us in the lives of mothers and children in prisons or custody institutions. The merge between film language and VR’s capabilities is balanced in the same way the role of the audience as both participant and observer is.
Not only does Surfacing place the audience as a participant, but it also specifically places them as a panoptic observer. The same way a panopticon prison works with its bearer of power in its center, where the entire prison’s activity is made visible and unverifiable through a vantage point, the film gives its audience the same unique perspective of these prison residents. Standing as a sole panoptic observer also implies power—power over the whole prison, introspectively and within the narrative of the film. Surfacing has created a new meaning to presenting its audience with agency.
Schillaci gives the audience power in a literal and metaphorical sense. In a more literal sense, it is a given that VR films lets its audience hold a level of agency. In a figurative sense, the film grants the power of control and knowledge to its audience. More than an immersive film, Schillaci names a “who” in our identity as viewer; an observer of a panopticon, the bearer of power. The capacity of the panopticon in relation to power and discipline has been alluded to by French philosopher Michel Foucault. This system inherently thrusts a power relation in the inmates, where they are under a conscious and permanent visibility at all times. Here, the relationship between observer and the observed resembles a reflection and exercise of power. In this regard, Surfacing is in itself an exercise and rumination of power.
New technologies and developments always need time to be part of a new culture. Perhaps the novelty of the experience simply confused my brain. What do you mean a character can look at me and it is supposed to make sense? What does it mean when I can become a character within the story? These questions do not come when watching a conventional film. Whether or not the merge of the film craft and VR technology will happen and become a new norm is still being determined. For now, at least, VR’s potential leans towards a more everyday use of VR, such as for virtual museums, structural planning, and interactions in 3D environments, as well as for educational, medical, and entertainment purposes. In the case of VR films, it is still too early to say where it will lead the future of cinema. Currently, the application of existing film language in VR films is still under experimentation and research. When approaching VR filmmaking, it is advisable to understand and apply existing film language, although the extent is never exact. After all, film grammar is an ever-evolving language that needs to be acknowledged for us to build upon it.
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