Conspiracy Theories: The Movie or David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver Lake is a remotely schizophrenic tale that roots its filmmaking etiquettes of directing, cinematography, and score composition off of the golden days of Hitchcock—specifically sentimental to his mystery noir films like Vertigo. Comparable to his debut It Follows, which was a marvelous callback to classic formalities, espousing the 70s slasher omen, Mitchell decides to transport us back into a time when abstraction and uncertainty engaged us into films more intensely. But in a movie, that I must say, is so keen on being the craziest of the mavericks, it’s narrative only proceeds with a structure unknown to the industry, something taxing to the common eye, something surely to stump society due to its divinely absurd presentation, and something that had be rolling in a dazed yet exultant state of mind throughout, constantly curious in regards to the gazillions of messages it had to say about the way we incorporate pop culture into our lives and our constant human compulsion to understand.
Calling this movie “pretentious,” in my humble opinion, is just plain lazy. This comment is, of course, no diss to those who didn’t like it—because I know there’s a LOT of individuals like that and that’s just like, your opinion man. It’s just that I’m tired of hearing the excuse, “the artist is just being self-absorbent, therefore, this movie has no real goal,” to explain why you couldn’t accept or even try to grasp a project’s creative ambition. If you are to properly insult this movie, please do it in a manner in which you audibly explain why it’s pretentious. Don’t just say the word because “pretentious” is honestly kind of a pretentious word anyways. Wait…
Under the Silver Lake is 100% what the cinematic world desperately lacks right now and based off of the mixed reactions of last year’s Suspiria, and even the year before that’s A Ghost Story, I have a feeling that audiences—and even critics—have seriously given up on supporting “truly original” motion pictures and are unconsciously slowing the process of expressiveness down. “Convenient” and “conventional” are two characteristics that should not be praised by film advocates or required in movies. Also, just because this is a movie that essentially exposes how disgusting Hollywood is for almost two-and-a-half hours doesn’t mean it should be shamed or discouraged because of Cannes Film Festival’s reaction to it. How dare thy!
I’m still salty that I didn’t get to experience this marvelous feat of filmmaking on the big screen and instead witnessed it on my outdated TV with half-broken speakers that “coincidentally” happened to combust during the moment I witnessed that ridiculous, final episode of Game of Thrones... First world problems, I know, I’ll shutup about it now. Anyways…this movie is aching to become a future cult classic, and you should go support it because, clearly, it’s not getting the love that it whole-heartedly deserves.
Verdict: A-
The Elitist Schemes sequence is the best scene I have seen in 2019 so far. Actually, this whole entire feature is the best movie of 2019 so far. Or is it 2018? A24 what have you done…
“Under the Silver Lake” is now available to rent and buy on YouTube, Amazon Prime, Google Play, and Vudu.
Burning the Celluloid 
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