Tragos: A Cyber-Noir Witch Hunt
Welcome to my first post on Bear Blog!
I’m JJ, and I would like you to think of this blog as my personal Letterboxd account, except instead of just movies, it’s for any kind of weird art I find on the internet. Also, no scoring, because putting a number on how “good” a work of art is diminishes the nuances of one’s opinion and the infinite possibilities of what art can be. (But that’s a subject for another day.)
Art: Tragos: A Cyber-Noir Witch Hunt
Experienced: On YouTube
A few days ago, my friend and I watched the film Tragos: A Cyber-Noir Witch Hunt. Directed by Antero Alli and available for free on his YouTube channel (along with many of his other films, including one as recent as 2023), this film is a glimpse into what people in 2001 thought the future of technology was, as well as a peak into the strange inner workings of the creator’s mind.
The film was quite bizarre. It was really confusing, more than anything, and it had enough of a clear plot for me to feel like this was unintentional.
Like, it makes sense at first: there's a techopagan cult of witches led by a woman named Bella Luxor, who loses her vision and her sister when someone (we don't see who) turns on an experimental program in Tragos, a virtual reality experience designed to bring people closer to the real world, but which can consume you if you forget what is real and what is a simulation. Luxor gets off scot-free for her supposed murder of her sister, so the fundamentalist Christian Bob (can't remember his last name) hires an actor posing as a detective for a role: to infiltrate the cult. That's what the description tells us, anyways, though I do think that the beginning explains itself fairly well.
The pacing is really off--it's not until over an hour into the hour-and-a-half film that the actor, Stretch, infiltrates the cult.
Spoilers in this paragraph, but after one scene of Stretch trying to get into the cult, he literally just tells everyone in the cult is real identity in the very next scene, so that basically goes nowhere. Then the fundamentalist and the cult leader have a sort of face-off which I really didn't understand in which they both go into Tragos together and Luxor regains her vision but Bob dies. Then it ends with Stretch talking about scapegoats, with the final line being "I was in love with Bella Luxor", which comes right the fuck out of nowhere, seeing as the pair only had two brief scenes together before Stretch disappeared from the plot. end of spoilers
Despite the confusion, I still enjoyed the film. There's a lot of interesting themes that I don't think were explored in depth but which are fascinating nonetheless. There's themes of technology distancing us from reality, religion, God, paganism, good and evil, moral panics, performance, and so on. I think it would be cool to pick up some of these ideas in my own work. The characters are highly exaggerated in a way that feels strange, and I mean that as a compliment. The most interesting part of the film, however, is the visuals within Tragos. The real world is depicted in black-and-white, but not only does Tragos have color (an effective if not subtle or unique way of conveying how much more vibrant and appealing Tragos is), but it also gets completely experimental with the visuals, making heavy use of glitches, negative colors, overlayed images, and occultic imagery to create a captivatingly surreal experience. I can't say I've ever seen anything like it.
If any of this sounds appealing to you, I’d recommend giving it a watch. It’s a unique experience, if nothing else. Just go in knowing that it doesn’t really utilize its premise to the fullest. It’s disappointing in some regards, and just the kind of weirdness I was hoping for in others.
I look forward to seeing more of this director’s work. Just from watching this film, I can tell that this is one of those artists who I desperately wish I could open their mind like the hood of a car and dig around in it. That’s not an uncommon feeling for me to have. I get it when I watch the films of David Lynch, for example. While Alli’s film isn’t even a fraction as masterful as just about any of Lynch’s work (save for Dune, which is has lots of fun quirks, but is kind of a hot mess), it still evokes a similar feeling of curiosity about how the fuck anyone could come up with this stuff. I’m excited to be asking the question again and again.