www.RachelOrmont.com is as impossible to describe as it is to mention online without the title defaulting to a hyperlink, but this, as I would imagine it, is intended. Writer/director Peter Vack, whose Assholes is a shining example of a brilliant film that I’d recommend to no one, has dipped further into surreality with his latest work, prankishly satirizing the near endless void of internet/corporate culture, and doing so without ever stopping to consider the audience. So often we’ll get a wantonly bizarre film that winks and nods to the viewer in order to ensure their understanding of the meta text, which isn’t an inherently bad thing, but I bring it up as a point of contrast to what we see in www.RachelOrmont.com (go ahead and visit the link if you like). Vack’s film isn’t necessarily trying to be cryptic, but neither is it willing to let any audience member feel detached enough so as to assume they’re more in on the joke than any of its more explicit targets. This is an exciting thing, given how rare it is to come across legitimate outsider art.
The plot is near impossible to describe, but the basics of it are akin to what one might find in an episode of Black Mirror. In this alternate (but somehow accurate) version of America, a super corporation is in charge of entertainment (and many, many other things). It’s called the North American Assessment and Advertising Agency or, in its abbreviated form, NAAAA. The film opens on a young woman who, baby in tow, finds herself face to face with a panel of representatives from NAAAA, here to assess the market potential of one or both of the applicants.
Good news: NAAAA can not only take the baby into their care, but they can also turn this young woman into a star.
And so it goes.
Cut to the present day, and the baby is now fully grown. Her name is Rachel (Betsey Brown), and she spends her days consuming and reviewing the super-corporation’s biggest product, a pop star named Mother (Chloe Cherry), who may or may not be Rachel’s actual mother. Cuz here’s the thing, this Mother is Mother #6.
I told you this wouldn’t be easy to describe. And frankly, to devote any more time to the plot would be ridiculous. It’s not going to get any easier to understand without experiencing it yourself. You have to see it in order to feel it in order to dance with it in order to get it. To write it all out would be as fruitless as trying to describe Inland Empire. And much like Lynch’s idiosyncratic masterpiece, you’re either going to vibe with it or you aren’t — it’s certainly not going to try and vibe with you, dick.
The reason I bring up Lynch’s ostensible final feature is that Vack is operating on a similar wavelength both in terms of tone and adherence to one central story. While yes, both movies do have a main character through which the audience experiences the film, the film itself is ultimately less about said character than it is about the setting she finds herself in.
In the case of www.RachelOrmont.com, our protagonist’s existence occurs as much in an alt-future real-world setting as it does in a surreal netherspace where the filmmaker is able to put forth ideas via vignettes that aren’t tethered to any quantifiable reality. There are multiple scenes in which our heroine, if you will, finds herself performing in front of a very vocal crowd. This crowd presumably represents the online/broadcast audience, despite being explicitly in a theatrical setting. One scene involving a green screen, a masturbation wand, and a sizable breastplate is a master class in using the limitations of cinema and budget to put forth a gigantic concept.
This is all heightened by hardcoded subtitles that run through the entirety of the film. Look closely and you’ll notice that the subtitles are in a familiar font: that of the meme. And much like the best memes, www.RachelOrmont.com is always operating a few layers deeper than what’s on the surface. One need be familiar with a series of memes leading up to the meme in question in order for the final meme to make sense. So much material is dissolved to a single image, and when it’s done right, it sings.
In the case of Vack’s film, it’s indeed done right, but it also leads to a delicious contradiction inherent to the material. On the one hand, one must be aware of a wealth of memetic bullshit in order to grasp the film’s oddball sensibilities. On the other, to be steeped in so much cultural data is to find oneself buried in the systems and mentalities the film seems to be satirizing. To again bring Lynch into this, www.RachelOrmont.com evokes a similar reaction as his work. Namely, I have trouble categorizing this as a comedy or a drama. It’s certainly funny, often raucously so, but it also made me feel rotten or, at the very least, susceptible to rot. I felt disdain toward so many of the ancillary characters as well as an affection toward their plight. It takes a powerful film to get me there, and this one did it using its own unique language.
This is due as much to the filmmaking as it is to the central performance from Betsey Brown. Brown has never been one to shy away from going all in on a character (seriously, see Assholes), cranking it up to 25 when anyone else would struggle to reach 10. She’s a fearless actress who, through the course of the film, makes a series of huge choices, and every last one of them works. From her odd baby talk at the film’s outset, through multiple personality changes, all the way to a final act that should, if the gods are good, secure Brown’s inclusion in any and all remakes of Possession that should ever occur, Rachel’s through-line is maintained. Few performers can enter such a cartoonish realm while keeping their character human, and Brown does it flawlessly. It’s touching that Vack, her brother, keeps writing bizarre roles upon which she can ply her craft.
www.RachelOrmont.com is a unique experience that is not likely to be fully understood after a single viewing (I’d certainly like to watch it again), but it’s one that will certainly stick with whoever is willing to roll around with it for a while. It’s rare to see something so genuinely strange that isn’t either winking at the audience or being cynical for cool points. Yes, there’s plenty of cynicism within the film, but there’s also a ray of hope and positivity that is downright enchanting, even if it’s steeped in crass humor, 9/11 memes, and frank depictions of bodily functions.
Or maybe I don’t get it at all and it’s just a weird group of filmmakers being weird. And that would be okay too.
Directed by Peter Vack
Written by Peter Vack
Starring Betsey Brown, Chloe Cherry, Dasha Nekrasova, Salomé
Not Rated, 80 minutes
