EXIT review - 2

Patrick Lim: EXIT
The Second Camera As Magnifier Of Truth

Interpretation by Dr. Anuar Nor Arai

Physical movements of characters are normal with subjective suggestions to the senses and the intellect. In the opening scene, the walk in the doorway represents the point of departure of a short psychic travel of the interrogator and it rather fixes a mind-scape into the interrogation room. The camera gives a perceptual experience along with the steady-cam long take. The camera does not wander but grabs the spontaneity of the physical entity with the interrogator thinking of the lady already seen in his mind. The subject of the lady who tried to control the atmosphere of a small room set in oblivion to herself is in a reversal confrontation with the interrogator at the end of the day. The cool display of juxtapositions in visuals and words keep EXIT in an alleged forwardness of false reality unfolding in the eyes of the camera and the sound track in the next room. The camera in the room has become the third interrogator, the legal denominator, and the attitude of the director. It is a cinema of attitude and instrumental to as magnifier of truth. The first camera fails to present reality in its objectivity and seems to portray the technological bias set on the characters. Words begin to fall in every part of the mind thus creating neutral ground between the two persons in the room. Neutral ground moves along with the objective camera. A gradual intrusion of the camera (a subjective point of view) into the face of the lady in the room does not reveal truth through the perspective of the lense. And all the gestures that relate to the interrogator – the lighter and the cigarettes – become difficult in all its simplicity. Simplicity is thus a concept that has functional truth. Objects add more to subjectivity. The mind is always the keeper of truth in the shades of grey between black and white. Truth seems to grow within the visuals and the audios.

to be continued...