Symbol Commentary

I knew going in that this movie was about a guy trapped in a white room where he had to press "switches" in order for things to happen.  And, by switches I mean little penises protruding from the wall. I knew that it had another story where a Mexican wrestler was preparing for a match.  I knew it would be weird and yet I went anyways because sometimes these artsy movies can be pretty cool.  All in all, I was rather disappointed.

First, the two story lines don't really have anything to do with each other and the flipping back and forth is  more distracting than anything else.  When they do converge, it is in such a haphazard and simple (yet quite comical) manner that I really didn't care and it seemed too convenient.  For the most part, I found myself thinking that the Mexican storyline had tremendous potential to be a heartwarming and inspirational story of a father who teaches his son to never give up on a dream.  Sadly, it could not do that because we had to keep watching a weird Japanese dude make an ass of himself.

Second, rather than engrossing myself in watching the guy in the room try to find a way out, I found myself getting more and more annoyed as to how stupid and illogical his choices with the items that would appear were.

Third, the movie got to be preachy near the end.  They took a seemingly random and bizarre event and tried to give it some sort of moral that we should all follow.  The only problem is that I have absolutely no idea as to what that moral is.  I don't think the film makers do either.  I believe they just saw an opportunity to be really artsy with a big music crescendo and it would make the audience want to be better people.  It really misses the mark.

Ultimately, the film did belong at the Dark Bridges festival because it was definitely different.  But the best thing about it was the United Colors of Bean short they showed at the beginning.  if you don't know what that is, check it out here.  Just don't blame me when you get the tune stuck in your head.  Although that's only half.  There was another half that explained the "origin" of democracy through a Romeo and Juliet scenario with the beans.

I don't think it is necessary or even advisable to see Symbol unless you really like the bizarre.  But I will give it a See recommendation solely with the hope that, if you see it, you can explain just what the hell it is to me.