[updated: April 4]
The Big Continent: Asian Cinema Challenge
Week 4: Indonesia [Film 2 of 2]
For this week’s installment of The Big Continent: Asian Cinema Challenge, challengers are tasked to select, view, and critique films from the list of Indonesia. I chose to review Indonesian classic’s Usmar Ismail’s After the Curfew (1954). It’s my first time watching this one.
This review is cross-posted in Asian Movie Pulse.
After the Curfew (dir. Usmar Ismail, Indonesia, 1954) – ***** – Usmar Ismail’s recently restored “After the Curfew” (1954) revolves around a soldier returning to his former life in the bustling city of Bandung, Indonesia, only to find himself increasingly alienated by the American-influenced modernity prevalent there.
Set in postwar Indonesia following the nation’s struggle for independence from Dutch colonizers (1945-1949), the film reflects the shaping of Indonesia’s contemporary historical and political landscape. This period also gave rise to significant global alliances, notably the Bandung Conference of 1955, uniting nations of the Global South against colonialism and neocolonialism, with the Philippines among the participating countries. Nationalist, democratic, and communist ideals proliferated in postwar Indonesian society, championed by figures like Sukarno, the leader of Indonesia’s anti-colonial movement against the Dutch. During this period, the sense of impending freedom was palpable, reflected in the mise-en-scene that portrays Indonesian society still steeped in revolutionary fervor but gradually embracing a more Westernized way of life.
At the heart of this societal shift is the protagonist/anti-hero, Iskandar, a former revolutionary soldier grappling with his newfound existence. Reuniting with his fiancée Norma, former comrades, and acquaintances like the infrastructure developer Gafar, brothel owner Puja and his companion Laila, as well as his former military superior-turned-governor Gunawan, Iskandar navigates these encounters, attempting to reconcile his past with an uncertain future.
For Iskandar, the Indonesian nationalist revolution defines the true reality that everyone must experience. It constitutes the site of maximal change, the historical turning point of his nation, that seemingly slips into ordinariness and oblivion when faced with Indonesian postwar contemporary life which seemingly forgets what happened to the struggle for independence.
For Iskandar, the Indonesian nationalist revolution represents the ultimate reality that all must confront, a pivotal moment in his nation’s history. It constitutes the site of maximal change, the historical turning point of his nation, that seemingly slips into ordinariness and oblivion when faced with Indonesian postwar contemporary life.
“After the Curfew” masterfully argues for the irreconcilability between the revolutions fought on the frontlines and the societal transformations that follow. One sees the incomplete nature of such social revolutions through Iskandar’s alienation and disillusionment.
On a broader scale, it contends that true social revolution eludes postwar Indonesia, with the old order persisting and bourgeois values and feudal structure retaining their dominance. It subtly critiques American cultural imperialism, embodied in Laila’s aspiration for a more modern, Americanized lifestyle portrayed in magazines like LIFE.
In addition, the filmmaker posits that a revolution’s success hinges on its ability to fundamentally alter societal norms and behaviors, echoing Maoist principles in cultural revolution. In postwar Indonesia, as depicted in the motion picture, capitalism prevails, leaving revolutionaries like Iskandar disconnected from a society that fails to align with their ideals. It argues that the new American-influenced Indonesian society metaphorically extinguishes the revolutionary spirit, foreshadowing the tragic events of the 1966 CIA-backed communist purge, which claimed the lives of countless intellectuals and activists, further underscoring its central thesis.
In conclusion, “After the Curfew” is a poignant cinematic exploration of the complexities surrounding postwar Indonesia’s transition from revolutionary fervor to modernity. Through the lens of protagonist Iskandar’s alienation and disillusionment, Usmar Ismail skillfully examines the tension between the ideals of the nationalist revolution and the societal changes that ensued. With its nuanced portrayal of the struggle to reconcile past and present and its commentary on the enduring influence of imperialism and capitalism, what emerges is a thought-provoking reflection on the nature of social revolutions and their lasting impact on individual lives and collective consciousness.
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The Big Continent: Asian Cinema Challenge
Week 4: Indonesia [Film 1 of 2]
For this week’s installment of The Big Continent: Asian Cinema Challenge, challengers are tasked to select, view, and critique films from the list of Indonesia. I chose a film not included in the list Kamila Andini’s The Seen and the Unseen (2017). It’s my first time watching this one.
The Seen and the Unseen (dir. Kamila Andini, Indonesia, 2017) – **** – Kamila Andini’s The Seen and the Unseen navigates the depths of a child’s subconscious, as seen through her cultural heritage. It recounts the story of fraternal twins, Tantri and Tantra. One fateful day, Tantra stole an egg from the gods’ altar, and Tantri subsequently prepared and consumed it. Tantri ingested the egg white, while Tantra consumed the yolk. Unexpectedly, Tantra collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, where doctors discovered a tumor in his brain. Tantri conjectured that the tumor resulted from consuming the yolk, interpreting it as divine retribution for disturbing the balance between the spiritual and human realms, as well as between man and nature.
The film offers a profound lesson about the inner world of a child, often perceived as simple and direct, is in fact intricate and mystical. It revisits the innocence of childhood, the off-beaten path, the path without the chains of representation, of the law.
Moreover, it challenges the conventions of adulthood, which often overlook or diminish cultural roots. The child characters gravitate towards the pre-linguistic and the non-representational. Tantri, for instance, is depicted walking at night and engaging with her comatose twin, the spirit of Tantra.
Furthermore, the film explores the boundaries between night and day, light and darkness, and the symbolic significance attached to them. The theme of duality permeates the narrative, embodied by the twins Tantra and Tantri, their preference for egg yolk over egg white, and the symbolic interplay of round shapes reminiscent of the sun and moon.
Andini utilizes cinematic space as a platform for the interplay between childish fantasies and the gravity of adult life. This spatial dimension significantly contributes to the film’s portrayal of indigenous consciousness, rendering it accessible to non-Indonesian audiences. Through gestures, masquerades, and a yearning for absence, Andini authentically captures elements of her culture, The generality of gestures, of masquerade, of longing for absence – Andini taps into pure expressions of her own culture, facilitating cross-cultural communication.
In its entirety, The Seen and the Unseen traverses the abstract terrain of pre-ontological Indonesian existence. It revitalizes cinema’s theoretical potential as a medium for exploring indigenous knowledge beyond the boundaries of language and the written word. By rediscovering cinematic expressions of rituals, dualism, and transformation, the film amplifies the discourse surrounding indigenous cultures, reshaping the language of cinema as a conduit for cultural understanding and appreciation.
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Cross-posted in Film Police Reviews.
Take Back Plenty (Colin Greenland, Gollancz) – **** – Colin Greenland’s Take Back Plenty offers a delightful reading experience, presenting an action-packed interstellar adventure featuring renegade thieves and the capable female captain, Tabitha Jute, commanding the ship known as Alice Liddell.
In the world of Take Back Plenty, interstellar vessels are equipped with powerful artificial intelligence systems, with Alice Liddell being one of the primary AI characters.
The adventure commences on Mars, where Tabitha Jute, piloting the Alice Liddell, finds herself evading the authorities after nearly inciting a riot. She encounters the persuasive contraband dealer, Marco Metz, who enlists her for a mission to Titan under the guise of being associated with a band named Contraband. Desperate for funds to repair her ship and settle fines with law enforcers, Tabitha reluctantly agrees. Their journey begins at Plenty, a space station orbiting Earth, where they load a shipment from the Frasque, an alien civilization.
While en route to Titan, they face interception by pirates and are forced to crash-land on Venus. The shipment, revealed to contain a violent Frasque-being, becomes a source of conflict as Marco attempts to sell it. The crew endures an attack, resulting in the loss of a member. Escaping Venus, they encounter further attacks from pirates until aided by a cherub-AI member of Contraband, enabling them to reach the orbit of Pluto, where they encounter the Capellans, an alien race that enabled the human race’ technological capability for interplanetary travel. The Capellans repair their ship, allowing them to return to Plenty and return the Frasque-being cargo.
Take Back Plenty presents an enjoyable sci-fi narrative reminiscent of Guardians of the Galaxy, replete with humor and featuring the resilient and charismatic protagonist, Tabitha Jute. to find a balance between the existence of different alien races. It draws on the futural hope of a new society built on interplanetary peace. But its otherworldliness is nonetheless almost Earth-like. It follows the structures of power of our human civilization.
In the book, Greenland taps into the notion of capitalism as an interplanetary relation. Capitalism remains a central theme, influencing characters’ motivations and actions, underscoring the persistent pursuit of wealth and survival in an interplanetary setting. It ties together Tabitha’s persistence to aspire for a new life, Marco Metz’s motive for dealing with contrabands, and the pirates’ quest for salvageable cargoes.
Overall, Take Back Plenty offers an entertaining and engaging read, serving as the inaugural installment of Greenland’s Plenty series, promising further adventures across subsequent volumes.
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The Big Continent: Asian Cinema Challenge
Week 3: 100 Korean Films
For this week’s installment of The Big Continent: Asian Cinema Challenge, challengers are tasked to select, view, and critique films from the list of 100 Korean Films. I chose one film, the #71 on the list, Jang Sun-Woo’s The Road to the Racetrack (1991), one of my favorite films of all time.
The Road to the Racetrack (dir. Jang Sun-woo, prod. Taehung Pictures, South Korea, 1991) – ****½ – Jang Sun-woo’s The Road to the Racetrack presents an intriguing premise: two lovers, both having completed their PhDs in France, find themselves back in each other’s arms upon reconnecting in Korea. Throughout the film, there is a lingering question of the viability of their relationship, only to realize ultimately that there is none. However, these two lovers might offer deeper insights into the historical forces at play in South Korea during the 1990s, perhaps more than the director’s initial intention. This interpretation leads us to reconsider how history can be subtly encoded in films, especially in the characters themselves.
For those who have not yet watched the film, The Road to the Racetrack resonates with contemporary Korean cinema, reminiscent of works by directors such as Hong Sang-Soo. Its portrayal of embroiled, dysfunctional cis relationships leading to despair is a familiar theme, yet there is more to it that meets the eye
The film’s opening prompts the question: Are they strangers? Initially, it is unclear. Jang Sun-woo thrusts his audience directly into the forefront of their relationship. We only learn that the woman, Ms. J, hails from a wealthy family of businessmen, and both Ms. J and Mr. R resided in France during their graduate studies.
The film offers a masterclass depiction of mansplaining and manspreading. While R is romantically involved with J, he is also a father to two children and a husband. He seeks to divorce his wife to marry J, who is already engaged to another man. In a classic demonstration of mansplaining, R consistently manipulates J, coercing her to submission.
Mansplaining in the film reaches a conceptual level akin to a social form of sadomasochism. R’s idea of control is almost paradoxical, given his status as a unemployed intellectual: no permanent address, alienated to his original family. Set in early 1990s South Korea, during a period of economic liberalization, R’s sole method of control was to assert dominance by physically controlling J. He is admittedly incapable of asserting class dominance, but resorts to intimidation and rape, symbolizing the old masculine feudal Korea.
To this effect, J and R symbolize the historical forces at play in early 1990s South Korea: R represents neoliberalism, carefree and privileged, while J embodies the feudal nobility, clinging to domination and force, to old habits, to nostalgia. Their incessant arguments and reconciliations underscore the futility of their ideological constructs.
In actuality, R, much like feudalism, is deeply entrenched in J’s sphere of influence. Despite their separate operations, feudalism continues to exert a historical influence on the emergence of the market economy under neoliberalism through primitive accumulation. Essentially, R paves the way for J’s power to manifest. R and J represent dialectical constructs, mirroring the dialectical relationship between feudalism and neoliberalism.
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The Big Continent: Asian Cinema Challenge
Week 2: Best Chinese Motion Pictures [Film 2 of 2]
For this week’s installment of The Big Continent: Asian Cinema Challenge, challengers are tasked to select, view, and critique films from the list of Best Chinese Motion Pictures. My review of Fei Mu’s Spring in a Small Town (1948) is already up. This is my second pick from the list, one of my most favorite films of all time, Yi Yi: A One and A Two (2000).
Yi Yi: A One and A Two (dir. Edward Yang, Taiwan, 2000) – ***** – For years since I watched Edward Yang’s Yi Yi: A One and a Two (2000) in my dorm room during my ChemEng undergrad days back in 2009, I hesitated to write about it. I feared spoiling the experience and memory of crying alone at 2 AM, trying to piece together how a three-hour movie could have such an effect on me. At that time, I was not what one might call a professional cinephile. I relied on pirated movies from a DVD shop/bookstore atop Zagu at the UP Shopping Center. Yi Yi was just one of many pirated DVDs I purchased back then. As an undergrad, I was broke, and buying the two-disc film for 100 pesos was a significant expense for me. Now, the challenge lies in gathering my thoughts and articulating why this film practically changed my life.
Two key realizations stand out regarding why Yi Yi made such an impact on me. The first realization occurred in 2009, which I later recognized as my initial philosophical awakening. In Yi Yi, I witnessed the exposition of Nietzsche’s third Zarathustran Metamorphoses – the philosopher as the Child. It took years for me to truly grasp it. In 2009, my understanding of Nietzschean philosophy was rudimentary. It wasn’t until 2014, when I delved into Nietzsche through Deleuze, that the concept of the child-as-philosopher fully materialized for me.
In Yi Yi, the Philosopher-Child is epitomized by Yang-Yang’s character, although the notion permeates several characters and their instances of transformation. According to Nietzsche, the Philosopher-Child represents a crucial step in transcending the asceticism of philosophy. It entails unlearning what we previously knew and embracing a fresh start, akin to a child. Yang-Yang’s character embodies this childlike openness to new beginnings. In the film’s conclusion, he reconciles concepts of life and death, as well as mediation and reality, encapsulating the transformation of the spirit from mere sense-certainty to the realization of the Absolute.
As viewers, Yang-Yang’s character overwhelms us, embodying the intricate process of unlearning adulthood and perceiving the world anew. Edward Yang contrasts Yang-Yang with his ascetic mother, who clings to repetitive faith, while resembling his father, NJ, who seeks new paths in life. Ting-Ting serves as the family’s moral compass, navigating societal ethics through her relationship with her controversial friend Lili and her friends. Together, Yang-Yang and Ting-Ting represent the pendulum between ethics and the theory of knowledge, which forms the philosophical essence of the film.
We will come to know everything that we did know before. We are not only good at destroying the Old World, we are also good at building the new.
– Mao, “Report to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China” (March 5, 1949), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 374.
The second realization regarding Yi Yi dawned on me later in my adult life, thanks to Alain Badiou. To me, Yi Yi embodies and explores the problematics of a Maoist Theory of Knowledge, encapsulated in the phrase: “We will come to know everything that we did not know before.” Beyond the Maoist films of the 1960s and 1970s, Yi Yi stands as perhaps the only film I’ve seen with its own theory of knowledge, particularly a Maoist one. Edward Yang cleverly articulates this theory through the Socratic dialogues between Yang-Yang and his father NJ in the car.
Yang-Yang’s insatiable curiosity drives him to seek the whole truth. Yang-Yang conjectures that humans cannot know the whole truth, only half of it. Thus, through his theory of photographic knowledge, he offers access to this other ‘half-truth.’ Yang-Yang’s theory resonates with Maoist ideals of uncovering previously unknown truths. He embarks on investigation and action, with photography serving as his practical solution. It’s a remarkable feat for a film centered on middle-class Taipei.
Sublation is the crucial step needed to translate the lessons from Yi Yi into revolutionary action. One weakness of the film lies in its idealism. Its portrayal of class dynamics and slow pacing fail to inspire mass action, primarily because its theory of knowledge remains confined within an art-philosophical framework. For philosophical films to incite mass action, they must integrate the mass line into the process of discovering the subjectivity itself through cinema.
Yi Yi marks a significant stride toward philosophical enlightenment. However, it may require another filmmaker to actualize its philosophical theory of knowledge as revolutionary praxis.
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The Big Continent: Asian Cinema Challenge
Week 2: Best Chinese Motion Pictures [Film 1 of 2]
For this week’s installment of The Big Continent: Asian Cinema Challenge, challengers are tasked to select, view, and critique films from the list of Best Chinese Motion Pictures. Without hesitation, I chose the top-ranked entry, a film from pre-Maoist era China by the rediscovered Chinese master filmmaker, Fei Mu. I intend to critique one or more films from this list over the course of the week. This marks the first of two films that I’ll be reviewing.
Spring in a Small Town (dir. Fei Mu, prod. Wenhua Film Company, China, 1948) – ****½ – I must confess, I’ve watched Spring in a Small Town several times before, yet it failed to leave a lasting impression of significance. Initially, I found it overly melodramatic. It wasn’t until I viewed Fei Mu’s Blood on Wolf Mountain (1936) that I began to grasp the director’s intent. Fei Mu proves to be more than a technician; he utilizes the expressive power of cinematic space to delve into themes of history, society, and community.
On the outset, Spring in a Small Town uses space to explore erotic tension and, more profoundly, to stage an erotically charged yet non-sexual drama concerning the complexities of a love triangle. The narrative revolves around a husband, Liyan, and his wife, Yuwen, who are visited by a mutual friend, Zhang Zhichen, Yuwen’s former lover from their teenage years. Throughout Zhichen’s visit, Yuwen attempts to seduce him, drawing him closer, yet Fei Mu portrays these interactions with a restrained elegance reminiscent of another brilliant Chinese-language film Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000). Meanwhile, Liyan’s sixteen-year-old sister harbors affections for Zhichen, prompting Liyan to ponder the prospect of his sister marrying his best friend.
Fei Mu’s chosen setting is a dilapidated house situated in a small town ravaged by the Sino-Japanese War. Contrasted with Blood on Wolf Mountain (1936), where Fei Mu vehemently expresses his disdain for Japanese invaders, Spring in a Small Town adopts a more nuanced approach, using the ruins of the physical landscape to recontextualize the melodrama as an exploration of the past.
For Fei Mu, memory permeates the present, unsettling its presumed stability. When Zhang Zhichen visits, Yuwen’s complex feeling about the past lover and her present husband disentangle. Such an untangling transplant memory as material history, the past intervening in the present for the future.
The film delineates two pivotal historical moments: the disruption caused by Zhichen’s arrival, which upends the characters’ daily routines, and Liyan’s near-death experience, which prompts Yuwen to rekindle her connection with him, compelling Zhichen to depart. These two moments reactivates first nostalgia as a form of desiring-production, and secondly, the historical fidelity towards change. Somehow, Yuwen’s return to Liyan sublates the potential to desire to overtake tradition. Yuwen emerges as the most changed, as if saying that the spring is truly finally here.
Much like Fei Mu’s other works, the female characters drive the narrative forward. They constitute the force of change. In Blood on Wolf Mountain, a young village girl urges her fellow villagers to confront the wolves; similarly, in Spring in a Small Town, Yuwen symbolizes the season itself, transitioning from the “winter” of her marriage with Liyan to the blossoming “spring” of their renewed connection, despite the harsh realities they face. She truly embodies the essence of this cinematic masterpiece.
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Rotting in the Sun (dir. Sebastian Silva, USA/Mexico, 2023) – *** – Sebastian Silva’s Rotting in the Sun is a dark comedy following a film director, Sebastian, played by Silva himself, who is grappling with depression. Encouraged by his friend Mateo, Sebastian visits a gay nude beach where he encounters Jordan Firstman, a social media influencer whom Silva accuses of lacking authenticity for being social media influencer.
The film attempts to capture an edgy, 90s Queer New Wave vibe, characterized by its deployment of a cinema verite style. It delves into two realms of reality: the unsimulated reality of Mexican society (but otherwise a product of performance) and the mediated reality of social media and the internet that pervades the narrative. Both Silva and Firstman navigate these realities in a drugged state, seemingly interested in each other yet ultimately disengaged. Caught in this whirlwind of dissociations is Vero, the maid, burdened with the truth about Silva’s death.
Vero, the central protagonist, shoulders immense responsibility for all. She remains the moral compass of the story. As a cis-female Mexican woman from a struggling family, she must also confront her employers’ homosexuality, all while worrying about her father’s medical bills and the threat of unemployment. She grapples with life’s most practical problems, which is a stark contrast with her privileged employers. In Vero, we see the income disparity of the ‘artists’ and their servants. She dwells in precarity, while her employers live autonomously. Even the work of mourning for Silva’s death is part of her undeclared job responsibilities. She’s clumsy but hardworking. Unlike the archetypal murder suspects in other films, Vero lacks the otherworldly tenacity and intelligence to resolve the conflict. She is humanly ‘real,’ and the film problematizes Vero’s mistakes of being all-too-human.
The movie also explores the subtext of melancholia in many gradations: first would be what I call the artist’s sadness, embodied by Silva himself in his search for himself, his own self-realization as a creator himself. The second would be the sadness negated by toxic positivity, embodied by Firstman, whose toxic trait of not seeing through Silva’s sadness, makes a classic case of contemporary capitalism’s demand for people to be happy. And finally, the sadness of inequality, as embodied by Vera, who just wants to do her job but is thrown in a series of unlucky events, that led her to her own fall.
The culprit for these gradations of sadness remain unwritten and unsaid, but implied when Vera said that the police in Mexico City are unreliable and, given her stature, she would eventually be jailed over an accident. The system is flawed, and the value system, askewed, as if Silva is saying, everybody and everywhere is fucked up. Silva’s rotten corpse on the rooftop symbolizes the rottenness of this displaced sense of justice in an unkind, disunited world.
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Shake, Rattle, & Roll Extreme (dir. Jerrold Tarog, Joey De Guzman, and Richard Somes, 2023) – **** – Shake, Rattle, & Roll Extreme (2023) represents the latest installment in the enduring horror franchise, Shake, Rattle, and Roll. Continuing the tradition of its predecessors, it consists of three short films that explore various tropes within Filipino horror.
In the first segment, Glitch, viewers are introduced to the trope of demonic infestation and oppression. Departing from the conventional psycho-social interpretation, Glitch showcases a demonic entity capable of inflicting physical harm on both spaces and bodies. The demon lurks in the shadows, poised to attack any unsuspecting characters. One particularly intriguing aspect of this episode is its use of the internet as a conduit for encountering the demon. Drawing upon the concept of cursed websites (see discussion by Chief Catholic Exorcist Fr. Syquia), the film explores the digital realm as a gateway for demonic entities. However, the portrayal of the demon itself lacks depth, revealing a lack in the film’s research compared to James Wan’s Conjuring series, which depicts more convincingly Catholic demonic possessions.
The following episode, Mukbang, emerges as a stronger segment than its predecessor. With its contemporary flair, it resonates particularly well with Gen Z audiences. This segment offers a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes lives of social media influencers as they converge for a collaboration project in a house teeming with otherworldly entities. Drawing on underground dwelling mythology and the concept of body snatchers, Mukbang taps into one of the oldest folkloric elements—cannibalism. I think the downside for this episode is it did not sustain the mode of the creepiness of the dungeon, since it focused on the social media aspect of the story.
The standout episode, for me, is the zombie-slasher segment titled Rage, starring Jane De Leon. Drawing inspiration from Western folklore, Rage reimagines the zombie apocalypse with a virus of extraterrestrial origin fueling the zombies’ rage. Unlike the two other segments in Shake, Rattle, & Roll Extreme, Rage is different in its depiction of a dystopian world. Although Glitch and Mukbang concentrate mainly on supernatural themes set in contemporary contexts, Rage carries the viewers across a post-apocalyptic landscape built by the horrors of zombie infection.
On the contrary to these familiar environments that are associated with Glitch and Mukbang within which they occur, Rage takes place in a totally different reality marked by chaos, hopelessness and struggle for life. This shift enhances both horror genre’s inherent tension and dread as well as augmenting depth to the narrative.
In addition it is not just an imaginary backdrop of the story but it is an integral part of it too. Thus through dilapidated landscapes, deserted structures and remnants of a community lost, one can see how desperate their situation really was. The bleakness of the setting mirrors the internal turmoil experienced by the protagonists as they confront the existential threat posed by the zombie horde.
Shake, Rattle, & Roll Extreme (2023) continues the franchise’s legacy of exploring diverse horror tropes within the Filipino context. While each segment has its strengths and weaknesses, the anthology as a whole offers an engaging and thought-provoking viewing experience for horror enthusiasts.
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Welcome to Camp Nightmare (Goosebumps #9) (R.L. Stine, Scholastic) – *** – Welcome to Camp Nightmare is a tale of camping gone awry. Initially appearing to be a typical camping narrative, R.L. Stine ingeniously subverts expectations with a surprising twist at the end.
Stine’s narratives typically immerse readers in first-hard experiences, and Welcome to Camp Nightmare is no exception. Through a first-person perspective, we join a group of campers thrust into unfamiliar territory, uprooted from their sheltered lives in middle-class suburbia.
The book fetishizes the wilderness as a ‘cultural outside,’ prompting Stine to explore the ethics of care within the camp culture. Horror and nightmarish conditions arise from neglect towards the campers, exacerbated by their displacement from their comfort zones. The fear of the unknown permeates this sense of displacement, acclimating as a deferral from the norm.
Stine masterfully structures the ending as a reversal of power dynamics. We discover that the entire camp is merely a simulation for an alien government project, preparing extraterrestrial beings for deployment to Earth. The protagonist is conditioned to feel utterly vulnerable, pushed to their limits to survive. As readers are led through a gripping drama of survival, Stine deftly shifts focus towards higher-order politics, revealing a crisis of care that short-circuits towards the politics of dissimulation and the lack of knowledge of this right-of-passage act. It’s as if Stine wants to tell us that the nightmare is only about to start in the end.
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OMNITUDO 