Of all the emerging trends of recent cinematic history, one of the least promising has to be the decline of media interpretabiliy. 

While directors have always been open about sharing their work, never before has the “meaning” or “purpose” of something become such a heavily scrutinized point. Whereas some experimental auteurs of the past like David Lynch remove themselves from their personal interpretations, modern directors seem much more interested in sharing what they believe their stories are about, rather than allowing the audience to live inside of the world and come to their own conclusions. 

This could be a side effect of multiple changes to the film industry. Press runs are much more prevalent to the average consumer and there are far more avenues to engage with a given piece of media. Creators also have a direct line of communication between themselves and their viewers through social media, subsequently disadvantaging artists who wish to remain more private. Given that this level of openness is relatively novel, it paints a gloomy picture of the future of what could be considered the new echelon of “experimental cinema.”  

“I Saw The TV Glow” is the newest film from A24, an indie film company turned movie titan. Since its release, director Jane Schoenbrun, who identifies as nonbinary and trans, has been very open about what they believe the film is saying and what they hoped audiences would get out of it. While that doesn’t necessarily mean there is zero room for new analysis, when an unconventional and visually robust film such as “I Saw The TV Glow” releases with an already set-in-stone definition, one cannot help but feel a tinge of disappointment. It’s almost as if any other interpretation is invalid as a result of Shoenbrun’s candidness.

We’ve seen this scenario repeat itself almost beat for beat with the Matrix series of films. Co-director Lilly Wachowski revealed in a Netflix interview that the Matrix was meant to be a “trans allegory” but claimed the world wasn’t “ready for it.” She would later backtrack on these claims in a separate interview, saying that her response was misrepresented by Netflix, but by that point, her previous statements had already been broadcast by most popular media outlets. In contrast, Schoenbrun has been very clear on “I Saw The TV Glow” being a trans-coming-out story, and as of writing this, they haven’t stepped away from that interpretation whatsoever.  

Ultimately, what we gain from both instances of directors sharing their opinions on their own movies is a lesson in perspective, more specifically, the effects that come from a single-point perspective. In the case of “I Saw The TV Glow,” it’s also the perfect case study on how an artist can be so incredibly wrong about their own work. 

It’s only natural for a director like Schoenbrun to jump the shark as soon as they begin. It’s not a benign condition, it’s common for many auteurs who are entering the film sphere. “I Saw The TV Glow” just so happens to be a unique case due to its subject matter and immediacy.

For all intents and purposes, “I Saw The TV Glow” seems like a continuation of the same themes Schoenbrun developed in their second film “We’re All Going to The Worlds Fair.” They’re both tales of obsession, childhood nostalgia, and the darkness of growing up. Both films also intend to recontextualize teenage socialization, with each interaction between the main characters feeling uncomfortable and borderline cringe-worthy. This is all just to say, that the connective tissue between both films is very explicit. 

That being said, “I Saw The TV Glow” takes things a step further. It very plainly lays itself out for the audience and follows a much more streamlined narrative. There are no playful intermissions or experimentation with media forms. Instead of the socially conscious internet-driven presentation, left in its place is an unmistakably modern take on a retro aesthetic that only exists in what we remember. One could call this intentional, as “I Saw The TV Glow” seeks to rewrite an already reminisced history, but in the same vein, there is a lot of deliberate effort put into the production design that says otherwise.

This is hardly a negative, and something that most nostalgia-latent films do partake in as well, but regardless it’s an important distinction to make clear before anything can be said about the not-so-hidden subtext of the film. The visuals are meant to say a lot about what our main character experiences and more or less determine the trajectory of the story. Time periods and the overall process of time itself play a very important role in developing our tragic protagonist, Owen (portrayed by Ian Foreman initially, then by Justice Smith), and seek to suspend our disbelief further. 

For instance, parallels between Owens’s seventh-grade self and Owens’s ninth-grade self seem to reflect his lack of maturity. In a long tracking shot, both versions of Owen walk to his friend Maddy’s (Brigette Lundy-Paine) house with the same level of awkwardness and hesitation despite the two-year gap between both instances. In another scene, a seventh-grade Owen is shown lying in the back of his parent’s car, asking his mother’s permission to hang out with a friend. A scene later in the film, frames ninth-grade Owen in the same position, once again asking his parents permission, this time to stay up late.

This is a recurring theme throughout the film and haunts Owen even into adulthood. It’s implied this is due to an inherent fear Owen has of his own father, but it’s also worth pointing out that Owen responds to all forms of command and control, even from Maddy. Only twice does he make a decision for himself and both times it’s for fear of disappointing another commanding figure. 

It seems more apparent that Owen simply respects the rules of seniority. Throughout the film, Owen is never really seen interacting with people his age, instead, he becomes a vessel for others to take advantage of. From this, it would appear his history of inaction seems to be more a side effect of his permissiveness rather than an intrinsic lack of autonomy. The fictional in-universe TV show Owen and Maddy obsess over “The Pink Opaque” highlights this character trait further.

“The Pink Opaque” is marketed as a TV show for young adults, immediately enticing Owen with the prospect of appearing older and therefore more mature, a very common desire for younger teens. Maddy’s status as a “young adult” adds to his disillusionment with his own age group and sense of self. Owen idolizes not only those seemingly superior to him but identifies himself with parts of them. This is precisely how he becomes engrossed and captured by the hands of the media. 

Both Owen and Maddy seek solitude and escape in the fictional media they consume, allowing it to take hold of their lives and perceptions. Maddy, who is also a victim of media manipulation infects Owen with her own visions and preoccupations. It manages to reach a point where she becomes convinced they’re living the alternate lives of the main characters from the show, all set in place as an elaborate rouse by the fictional in-universe villain Mr. Melancholy. While Owen rebukes these claims telling Maddy, “It’s just the suburbs,” the damage done to his impressionable mind has already made its irreparable mark. 

It should be stated that both characters appear to come from difficult home lives. Owen outside of his fear of his father also silently grieves the declining health of his mother and Maddy lives with an abusive stepfather. This essentially makes both characters the prime targets for media escapism, but what’s more harmful is the irreversible psychological damage that seems to come from both sides of abuse. They seek to insert themselves into the main characters because they possess traits and opportunities simply not present within their existence. However, this incidentally propels them further into a cyclical state of disillusionment with reality. Their method of coping is self-destructive and further estranges them from society and reaching their potential.  

By the end, Owen is caught in an unfilling cycle of existence, surrounded by the childhood that eludes him. Memories of birthday parties and the old TV shows he used to enjoy fade into obscurity as he’s surrounded by an indifferent world. It’s not so much that the world he’s living in is miserable, it’s that he’s miserable living in it. It’s not like the mystical world shown in “The Pink Opaque.”

Shoenbrun interprets the ending as equally tragic but for a different reason. They see it as Owen refusing to accept his true self, the fact his real body is in “The Pink Opaque.” Even as Owen quite literally opens himself up, he rejoins the world apathetic to his plight. Owen is lying to himself and the audience. In the end, he is forced to live a passive life, conforming himself to the constraints world around him. It’s a rather literal interpretation, and for a film with such a unique style, it doesn’t present something very interesting nor does it extend past the walls of the story at hand. 

What seems more likely is that the poignant ending acts as a cautionary warning. It’s a pointed reflection of the audience, a look into the lives of those who allow the media they consume to control their hollow existence. It’s what happens when we let the media we consume define us and cultivate our understanding of ourselves. It’s what happens when we refuse to open ourselves up, and accept reality as reality. We carry on living the delusions we keep inside our heads and expect the world to validate them simply because it’s how we feel.

Don’t watch the artificial TV glow, instead, let the sunshine in.

One of the most common motherly hyperbolies we hear in early childhood is about how far they would go to protect us. Usually something along the lines of, “I would hurt anyone who tries to lay a finger on my baby.” While this statement is obviously not meant to be taken literally, it nonetheless instills a level of morbid security in our sacred youth. It makes you wonder the extent a parent would actually go to safeguard their child against the harms of the world.

Hur Jin-ho’s 2023 film, “A Normal Family” demonstrates what these lengths could theoretically look like and then some. It’s a Korean adaptation of a Dutch novel called “The Dinner,” which has already seen several adaptions beforehand from multiple countries. This one, out of all of them, seems to be the most positively received by audiences, a rather small feat considering its dull peers.

The film begins with a scene of road rage between two belligerent strangers: a father driving his daughter and a teen recklessly driving his Maserati around. The interaction results in the teen driving his car into the father, killing him, and also critically injuring the daughter. This event sets the film in motion as our main characters are loosely connected to this moment but it also demonstrates the most common motif seen in the film. The interconnectedness of family and how our actions and consequences often cause a ripple effect, condemning more than just ourselves.

Representing the driver in court is Jae-wan (Sol Kyung-gu), a shady defense attorney who uses the law as a cloak to disguise and manipulate reality to his liking. Brother to Jae-wan is Jae-gyu (Jang Dong-gun), a doctor working at the same hospital where the daughter from the start is receiving treatment after being crashed into. 

Early on, Jae-gyu is posed as the de facto protagonist: he’s appalled by his brother’s complete apathy when Jae-wan asks him to ask the daughter’s mother to take a settlement deal, he works in a more respected profession, and, most importantly, he prides himself on his strong moral compass. Their main unifying factor stems from their shared experience of fatherhood, although they have very contrasting parenting styles that end up leading to the same place as the film goes on. 

Jae-wan, father to Hye-yoon (Hong Ye-ji), becomes more distant from his eldest daughter as he rears a new child from a new wife, hoping that the lavish lifestyle that he provides will suffice his absence. On the other hand, Jae-gyu is a father to a son, whom he’s extremely firm with. Jae-gyu wants his son to build his own path, rather than taking any handouts from him. The only real similarity between both of them is their high regard for education. An unremarkable footnote, given the near-universal importance of education in Korean culture.  

By and large, a child is the reflection of the parent’s values and teachings. They’re placed in particular environments that present decisions to that child, the consequences of those decisions then shaping the child into an adult. It’s an endless cycle of regression and progression, and a parent can only hope that their child will do the right thing. “A Normal Family” highlights this fact of life constantly, especially after the main conflict of the film reveals itself. 

The parents’ respective children end up putting a homeless man in critical condition while they are away at dinner, thus, presenting a caution – despite a parent’s best efforts, their children still select their own path. It can be argued this moment in the film is identical to the first conflict shown at the beginning. An act of violence causes a ripple effect that reflects not only on themselves but on the rest of their family. An all too obvious parallelism that ultimately doesn’t reveal much more than it did initially.

As expected, Jae-wan attempts to slide things under the rug, while Jae-gyu at one point attempts to turn in his own son to the police. However, as more information is revealed about the circumstances of that night, and the death of the homeless man comes to pass, the roles between the fathers begin to shift.

However, this shift is where the film begins to falter. Although the movie highlights this internal conflict of moral compasses and the cognitive dissonances that tend to take over once one’s children are involved, the reasonings behind the shifts in opinion are contrived. Furthermore, the poor execution is highlighted by an underwhelming climax in which the families argue in a poorly directed dinner sequence.

On one hand, it can be said that Jae-gyu switches not only because his moral compass falters because of his love for his son, but because he simply wants to surpass his brother, wanting to be contrary to him. This stands perpendicular to the film’s theme Jae-wan says at the beginning, “Everybody gets weak before their children.” Rather, Jae-gyu becomes weak before his brother.

On the other hand, Jae-wan, originally set on allowing his daughter to get away with murder, suddenly has a change of heart when he discovers that the children actually don’t feel any remorse for their actions. This scene has no emotional weight to it as it is plainly obvious that Jae-wan’s daughter does not care. Multiple times throughout the film she expresses clear apathy towards being an accomplice to the murder.

As a brief aside, I am currently attending law school and thought it’s interesting that it never once crossed Jae-wan’s mind that he is now an accessory after the fact as he intentionally helped her evade arrest, knowing that she committed a felony. 

I digress. While Jae-gyu’s switch is offensive on a thematic level, this switch is offensive on a storytelling level as it completely telegraphed what is going to happen in the penultimate dinner scene where Jae-wan expresses that he must uphold the law, while Jae-gyu sees it as his duty to protect the integrity of his son. Effectively, the dinner scene renders the surprise ending scene, as lackluster shock at best. 

Although the film possesses an interesting premise, it sputters in the finer details about presenting the central conflict, resorting to an obvious shock ending that unfortunately is not enough to leave a lasting impression about parenting or family life.

Fabian Garcia contributed to this post.

The San Diego Asian Film Festival returned for its 13th spring showcase with one of its most interesting exhibitions—an entire Sunday dedicated to films directed by the late Tibetan filmmaker Pema Tseden. Four films, from his second feature to his most recent film, were on display at Ultrastar Cinemas in Mission Valley. We caught the second film out of the quadruple feature, his 2015 film “Tharlo.”

“Tharlo” follows the same narrative beats as a Greek tragedy or a modern folktale. An orphaned man with no real name must find his bearings in a society that has largely ostracized and sequestered his kind. Despite appearing a mostly well-spirited individual, he finds himself at the short end of every stick, unable to adapt to his metropolitan surroundings, representing the ideological impasse between rural and urban Tibetan life. Tharlo, the titular main character portrayed by Shide Nyima, acts as a medium, a theoretical bridge between the two worlds. A fact made even more apparent through the various characters he meets throughout the story.

At its core, “Tharlo” is about how far someone is willing to go to escape loneliness, that irreconcilable feeling something is missing from your life. Almost as if, you haven’t lived enough to be considered a full human being.

Tharlo doesn’t speak very much throughout the film, despite it being named after him. His permissive tendencies eventually lead him down a path of despair and uncertainty. It displays not only an ideological difference between the various lifestyles of the Tibetan people shown in the film but also a sociological one. It’s not so much that Tharlo is a victim of naivete, more so a victim of unfair ignorance. He is inherently trustworthy of people due to his lack of exposure to people as a whole. He blindly reciprocates and follows the words of others due to a perceived sense of inequality or authority from most people around him. His strange quirks and idiosyncracies are exploited constantly for personal gain or just plain amusement.

The only time where Tharlo is in any kind of peace is when he is alone on his goat farm, an environment that quickly eludes him after his exposure to alternative lifestyles, almost as if he has been corrupted by it. A powerful scene displays this point very clearly, Tharlo sits upon a rock watching his goats herd themselves into a small clearing. They move farther and farther away from him, whilst the frame slowly converges on his isolated figure.

Most of the deeper themes in “Tharlo” are expressed like this. They’re typically visual and almost purely subtextual. It toes the line of slice-of-life more than melodrama. This is likely because the film doesn’t follow the same constrictions of a traditional narrative film. Its neo-realist style is more akin to a well-staged documentary or even cinéma vérité. The camera often sits in a single spot for a long time, portraying Tharlo’s existence rather indifferently.

However, it would be unfair to say that the film isn’t without a sort of bias built into its skeleton. The film is a tragedy after all, and Tharlo plays the fool throughout most of it. Whether Tseden is alluding to a preference toward one viewpoint over another is probably unimportant either way. We are meant to identify with Tharlo because the film is ultimately about his experience. In a way, he represents tradition as a whole. How most will largely leave it behind to advance as quickly as possible, a sort of forced adaptation to which Tharlo willingly complies.

In a Sampson-esque turn of events, his hair is shaved off, stripping him of his strength and overall sense of self. He’s completely transformed, his previous life, is just a memory. What is left is all he can see through old Tibetan eyes.