u/GoodGoodNotTooBad

In response to a critical post about Backrooms distributed by ~u/Apprehensive-Tie4930~ I thought it would be good to engage with the ideas that were in the review directly. I saw some annoyance from FPS people due to u/Apprehensive-Tie4930’s presence in general, and while I do understand some of the pushback this person gets I think it’s important to speak to the specifics of the ideas that were presented. This is after all a space for people who really like movies and I think well-made movies like Backrooms deserve the additional discussions.

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The start of the Letterboxd review itself was interesting. This person (who is not u/Apprehensive-Tie4930 I think) praised the film’s opening due to its style being similar to the director’s YouTube series but then they shifted into the belief that the film lost its edge once it became similar, in their mind, to works by Eggers, Aster and others.

I personally didn’t feel this way while watching the film but I think it’s fine that the Letterboxer did this. They clearly don’t enjoy the way those directors produce their movies and if that’s this person’s POV and references to make their argument, I’m glad they said it early because it does help explain their overall issues with Backrooms not being “revolutionary” enough to them in form. (Forgive me for the term “Letterboxer.” I do not use Letterboxd so I do not know what its users call themselves.)

Before I go further, I think I like Backrooms partly because I was not familiar with The Backrooms or Parsons before this. I have seen images of backrooms before because I am interested in the liminal space idea and vaporwave as well as science and speculative fiction (small plug but I traffic in some of these ideas with my debut novel in progress), but the specifics of this thread of the internet are entirely new to me. Maybe my ignorance allowed me to enjoy the movie more, but overall I just think I liked Backrooms because I thought it was very well done from start to finish.

I’ll pull out some specific quotes to respond to now:

>“This stylistic shift is unfortunately an inadvertent self-metaphor for an internet phenomenon becoming lost in translation when absorbed as IP for mass culture. Creepypastas like the Backrooms are the closest things we have to modern folklore, and it’s maddening to watch a unique schema be subsumed into contemporary cinematic trends in real time.”

To me this is an issue of expectations. I can understand why someone who clearly loves one form of the project (The Backrooms) just couldn’t jive with Backrooms because it feels to them like other films that are already in theaters. I somewhat understand this. Maybe to the reviewer this new A24 work feels too polished in terms of its visual representations.

With that said I think Parsons showed incredible skill to blend his previous filmmaking techniques with other filmmaking techniques. To me it’s like an underground artist having a certain way of making music and is now bringing that into their first *commercial* studio album. In my mind Parsons simply added to his tool kit and is all the better for it. I like to see growth in artists.

To be clear, it is not “growth” simply because he’s making his work match SOME of the languages used in modern commercial films. It is “growth” to me because he’s added a new language in general to his mind for future reference. I hope that distinction makes sense. Maybe some will see that as selling out but I don’t think of it that way. To extend my music analogy, imagine a producer only making beats in his home studio but later learning how to control the big boards at Electric Lady as well. Imagine the possibilities of blending both.

>“Parsons and his team deserve credit for the fabulous practical sets. I still maintain that The Backrooms, conceptually, function better as still images, but it’s great to see Real Actors traverse Real Spaces, even if it occasionally looks like a poorly rendered video game.”

I’m not a big gamer but I understood this point even if I don’t agree with it. I’m just glad this person gave props to the practical sets.

>“What repeatedly undermines this is Parsons/Van Breemen’s horribly overbearing score. The source text describes ‘endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz’. If only Parsons trusted in that dictum of musical silence; if only his film was carried entirely through diegetic murmurs. His score instead commands what to feel, when to feel it, and how you should be doing so. Another personal vindication of Backrooms being more effective pictorially.”

I couldn’t disagree more. I need to rewatch the film but I loved how everything sounded and I’ve even purchased the soundtrack. Personal taste is personal taste though.

>“The film is haunted by anachronistic artifacts: Reinsve’s audiobook is released on cassette, the twink holds a video camera of VHS textures, the ‘Frontroom’ furniture could either be 5 or 50 years old. This same analog nostalgia mirrors broader cultural trends—the resurgence of vinyl, for instance—as a reaction to digital fatigue…”

I don’t understand this as a critique, honestly. The film is set in 1990 and the filmmakers put 1990s artifacts in the film. Is the accusation that they only did this because people are intrigued by analog technology? People have always been interested in analog technology as well as digital media, though I do understand *some* of the trends with analog in the macro point-of-view.

Beyond this the series is sci-fi based and sci-fi tends to move the timeline up and down to provoke certain moods and interests. I guess I just don’t see how the setting itself is something to “critique” unless it was done incorrectly or in a boring way. It seems more like something to observe and appreciate or wonder if it nailed everything it was attempting to nail, not simply critique just because it’s there.

I do not believe Parsons has the ulterior motives of “Man, let’s set it in the 90s™ because Gen Z loves the 90s™!”

>“Parsons’ most compelling idea is also his most frustrating and undercooked: a dull visualization of repression. In an admittedly fantastic shot, his camera booms downward toward the floor, and continues to pass through it, again and again, each iteration of the same room becoming increasingly detached from its original (I will not be so pretentious as to mention Baudrillard here, although I’d like to).”

Admittedly this is where the reviewer lost me a bit. I just think it’s odd to hint at your own view of your potential to be pretentious but if you’ve already tried to show how “well-read” you are all review why not keep going? Were you just getting tired of your own arguments? If you’d come so far why stop there lmao. Cite that text homie. (In general I am just teasing.)

>“His point is clear: trauma creates hazy memories which are buried deep into the subconscious. The Backrooms—in all its labyrinthine glory—are the stifled neural pathways Reinsve mentions early on. But this is undercut by a dreadful sequence of exposition. His characters do not exist outside of this moment; they have no inner life beyond the immediate text. Parsons is totally incurious about the psychology of Reinsve and Ejiofor unless it functions to propel another uninteresting lore dump later. They operate solely as avatars to walk around spaces — not unlike a video game walkthrough. Such a YouTube-addled upbringing is similarly apparent in the final shot, perfectly engineered for the “ending explained” video ecosystem. Much like his producing partner Perkins, it is traumaslop.”

I disagree but I think it’s an interesting idea to bring up. I can see an “inner life beyond the immediate text” with the core two characters especially. I really like when films give clues to people and I can fill in the blanks. We do it all the time when we judge people.

>“I’m in two minds about the ‘twist’: if it came later, I’d find it to be an annoying rug-pull, but its current form (revealing Duplass early) cheapens the horror of arbitrariness which Backroom images evoke. Cutting to him continuously reframes the film in terms of tech-dystopia tropes, reminding us that a Black Mirror or Don’t Worry Darling conceit is ahead. The space becomes less liminal uncanny void and more Upside-Down from Stranger Things. Once the company got involved, Backrooms reminded me I still haven’t watched season 2 of Severance, and that depiction of corporate conspiracies is far more whelming than Parsons’ dumb take.”

Stuff like this is a cool film critique. I also thought of Black Mirror of course though I didn’t think about Don’t Worry Darling at all since that film is pretty forgettable. The FPS guys brought up Stranger Things too but I’ve never seen it so I wouldn’t have thought about it personally. I’ve also never seen Severance but I understand that Severance shares DNA with The Stanley Parable, another liminal space text, so it makes total sense. At the end of the day sci-fi ideas are constantly in communication with itself. It is very hip hop-like to me in that the genre constantly borrows and makes tweaks intentionally and unintentionally.

>“Backrooms—and, sight unseen, Obsession—are too reliant on conventional narratives to constitute a genuine revolution. Reinsve’s character continuously reminds Ejiofor, and thus the spectator, that new paths must be formed, new neural connections, and his repressions (as embodied by the Backrooms) are hindering that. Nascent young filmmakers must do the same. The corporate Backrooms won’t allow it otherwise.”

I’d like the reviewer to expound on this particular idea because I do think there’s something interesting here but they would need more to say for me to comment on it.

>“It’s hard to discuss Parsons’ age without sounding condescending or patronizing, but this really is a tremendous effort for a 20 year old. There is a great film somewhere within Kane Parsons, and at least ten fabulous YouTube Shorts located in Backrooms. None of that, unfortunately, makes his film watchable.”

This felt sincere so I can’t be mad at it or the overall review. If they said the film was pure trash from start to finish I wouldn’t have taken them seriously or subjected you to my thoughts. To me this person clearly wanted a different product than what they got and is simply extremely disappointed and trying to figure out why. We’ve all been there.

Ultimately one of the comments under the Letterboxd post is what I agree with most. This is their Letterboxd account to give them credit. I’ve cleaned up the comment a bit and cut some of the edges:

>“Your reliance on the original image is also a bit odd. It’s like watching an animated movie and being upset that it didn’t match the first draft of the concept art that was created by a different artist 10 years prior to the current film’s inception. Parson is not adapting that still image from 2014, he never was and never really has been. Even though I haven’t watched much of his YouTube series, it is painfully obvious that he is further adapting his own rendition, his own pre-established world that DOES feature a company/conglomerate that dispenses men in hazmat suits into the void. Yes, it may use that original image as inspiration, but very very early on into his series, he separates himself from that constraint to build his own fully fledged and built-up world. That’s the movie you’re watching, his series adaptation, not a movie based around that still image created by a different person.”

Some pretty wild details in the report. Wondering how the investigation will turn out.

Bomani Jones interviewed Howard Bryant about his most recent book "Kings and Pawns." Highly recommend!

I'm circling back to post about this album again. It really is a fantastic showcase of Joe Henderson playing with a really lively late 70s rhythm section.

The interview attached features the pianist Joanne Brackeen talking about Henderson's approach to playing live and the impact these kinds of recordings can have. I'm hoping they put the full album out on streaming eventually.