A 2007 black and white Sci Fi film with a minimum of dialogue and the feel of an adventure game. Eden Log starts out with a man who doesn’t know who he is or where he is and we follow him around as he makes his way up level by level. Along the way he encounters mutants, security guards, and the seemingly endless roots of a giant tree.
This was a stylish film with an interesting look to it-but for me there were a few too many missing elements. We are never told when, where, or what is going on. We don’t know who the hero is, or even if he is a hero for most of the film. As a result I didn’t care what happened to any of these people, mutants, or the tree.
Eden Log was a short movie, but it was set at a snail’s pace. There are long sequences of wandering around in the dark, hiding, and watching videos of past events. The only real action involves a rape scene intercut with a romantic vision of that rape. Our hero kills a number of mutants, but they don’t really seem all that threatening. We keep moving upward, as proved by large signs on the walls that read -4, -3, -2, -1, and 0.
Having played a lot of adventure games I constantly felt as if I was going to be given a prompt or a floating hand at any moment and asked which way I wanted to go in the maze. Not knowing who or where you are is a familiar role playing game starting point, as is having a simple goal, such as getting to the next level.
It’s always good to see a Sci Fi movie that wants to be taken seriously, even if it doesn’t make much sense in the end. It’s always easier to read sci fi than to watch it-imagining the impossible is easier than seeing the poor film versions of the impossible. Eden Log does a pretty good job of showing a cave and a number of tunnels, but the tree, especially at the end, looks just awful. The varied and sundry bits of broken tech are also very filmic and not very techy.
The end made no sense to me, even after reading the Wiki page, it still made no sense. But then I read that the Director was inspired by the French version of Heavy Metal magazine-so it wasn’t really supposed to make any sense.
