detectives – TimeSpace Warps

timespace coordinates: somewhere in the near future in a high tech billionaire Arctic retreat in Iceland.

Created by Brit Marling & Zal Batmanglij

Suffice it to say after Netflix killed “The OA” everyone must have eagerly waiting for news any news regarding any new production from the Brit Marling & Batmanglij duo – IMHO one of the most ambitious, consistent, and surprising actors/screenwriters/director collaborations in the Anglophone world.

In an era where franchises driven by algorithms churn more of the same, Brit and Batmanglij single-handedly introduced memorable “high-concept” SFs thrillers into the cinema world of the early 21st century. What I enjoy is that they never dispense with the emotional valences – even if they’re intelectual provocateurs (especially considering the formats). We on Timespacewarps are fans of their work and have been following it from early on (even on our previous blog entries – Planetneukoln for those who know). Starting with the startling Sound of My Voice (2011)– two documentary investigators go under cover for their scopp but instead get their certitudes checked by a charismatic cult leader (played by Brit Marling herself) allegedly coming from the future. The same intensity and emotional palette colors the doppelgänger encounters of Another Earth (2011) . Contemporary entanglements and a continuing preoccupation with under cover reporting, activism, violent action vs non-violent civil disobedience, dirty deals of corporate crime, private agencies – abound in the slick espionage SF drama The East (2013) that I totally recommend as an appetizer for the rest of their work. I think the Brit-Batmanjlij collaboration and involvement with The OA has produced so many threads, so much speculation & online debates that is makes it impossible to sum up. There is even a caricature version – where one expects non-sequiturs and portals, speaking octopuses at every step. Yes, Murder At the End of the World does not deliver in that sense, because it is a more subtle and muted beast. All that makes it impossible for me here to summarize or discuss the cult following they have garnered over the yearsbut you get the idea.

Murder at the End of the World is certainly a flawed product, but hey the had to play it safe after what happened to the OA I guess. I could go on criticizing the somehow worn-out premise (rich obnoxious guy inviting or challenging his competitors in a remote mansion), disjointed often filler storylines, masked assassins (think Ghostface but with anti-face recognition mask), claustrophobic situations, and an out-of-ordinary cast (of somehow unnerving) misfits and entrepreneurs.

It’s also a show about how technology permeates the everyday life of the super-rich – rich kids play with VR or AR environments largely outside of the purview of their parents, rings function as personal keys and insect robots are digging more underground retreats or special extreme weather suits. From the beginning, the non-linear plot moves from the present readings of a book with events about past to the past events themselves, or between a subplot in the US desert where murder after murder brings us closer to the serial killer – a cis-romance sleuthing of two young charismatic (Gen Z) hacker and a sexy artist-activist that will get famous, split up and be invited in the future by the rich tech billionaire. If this whodunit murder drama in the Arctic retreat of white expanses and majestic almost lifeless landscapes attracts you in any way, then feel free to watch.

You can also watch it just for the visual and emotional kicks this might deliver because the stark surroundings and deadly nature end up being the perfect background for various murders and medical situations (including immortality dreams of the rich). The series is not so much about conclusions, or solving the murders, but about certain obsessions, and a generalized contemporary vulnerability, of being both strong and very weak at the same time. Of being technically adept and not being able to prevent crimes from unfolding. The ending is not about the impending End of the World, but about places at the end of the world that are being colonized by the rich in their wish to decouple and insulate themselves from the troubles of a sacrificed majority. Such modulations of (climate) and emotional changes provoke strange encounters and bizarre romantic relationships (think Elon Musk and Grime), strange bedfellows compounded by omnipresent affordances, of the grid ecological terrorists (that nevertheless turn out to not be very effective). Ok, there under constant surveillance under ‘surveillance capitalism’ but watching the repetitive loops and pans of surveillance cameras is mind-numbingly boring. Murder At the End of the World makes it clear how our world is being drenched by audiovisual recording and playback technologies.

The hacker sub-genre has a certain revival with Mr. Robot, and Murder At the End of the World does put an effort to bring gender balance into the mainly manly hacker geek den. It does this credibly and excitingly in my opinion, although one would prefer more from the main hacktivist played by Marling.

If there’s also real (full automation) and productivity out there, it’s not very sure how it will benefit the rest of humanity meaning lots of mining by robot swarms up North (the new warming climate is actually profitable for the super-rich). It’s also one of the few media productions that depicts activists in a sympathetic way. Scientists turned activists in a positive light and not straight away as eco terrorists or renegades or Luddytes or anarcho primtivists.

Disappearing or not leaving digital traces is either a rich man’s ability or the ability of a hacker to delete or blur oneself and skip recordings times or hack into heavily AI-assisted environments, even if this in the end brings us no agency or no real way to change the past. Solving murders seems to be a collective procedural thing – also crowd-sourcing sleuthing to former victims or a growing online community of serial killer hunters.

I am not so convinced about the detective genre in general in the 21st century, but if murder mystery drama thriller is your thing, go for it.

This miniseries leaves more questions than it answers. I also get the sense that it is a vehicle for the major issues of today (the exterminist capitalist tendencies and the villainous libertarian billionaire ‘geniuses’ building luxury bunkers in remote areas outside of any accountability), US/CN competition over technological hegemony, fears over AI black-boxing, etc In a way it all goes against deductive reasoning in a way. It is Agatha Christie and it isn’t at the same time, because it rejects the usual sense-making mechanisms of this modernist genre – all the big mysteries seem solved, identifying and recognizing does quite work and in the end, it is a new ‘kind’ of culprit altogether (collective guilt?). And maybe transforming it into a personal family drama of a rich asshole is the best way to get people’s attention, who knows?

Feeling we are more dependable than ever on the benevolence of the rich entrepreneurs, and the unwanted tech Web3 “free” gifts, blockchain-specific technologies (DAOs, DeFi, NFTs) and uberization they are raining on top of us, while processes and algos that most of us do not understand or harness have free-range – is the larger theme here. Maybe a crime story is just the surface icy layer (everything is quite icy despite the high emotions) and maybe the drama leads us somewhere beyond the sleuthing whodunit of murdered activists. What is the most major crime story of our times? Well, we could well argue the actual murder case is the ever-worsening climate emergency. But that is eminently no mystery. No sleuthing to be done, no uncertainties, no whodunit from the future to the past, because we now know that since 1979 experts at Exxon Mobile were already warning about the warming greenhouse effect of the planet. So, nothing there to uncover in the snow. We know before long who the culprits and the denialists were.

imdb // wiki // rottentomatoes

timespace coordinates: 2006 (post-Katrina) New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a 2009 American black comedy crime drama film directed by Werner Herzog and starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Tom Bower, Jennifer Coolidge, Alvin ‘Xzibit’ Joiner, Val Kilmer, and Brad Dourif.

poster by https://www.instagram.com/briannanus/

Though the film’s title and story loosely resemble that of Abel Ferrara‘s 1992 film Bad Lieutenant, according to Herzog, it is neither a sequel nor a remake; its only commonality is a corrupt policeman as the central character. Nonetheless, the director of the original Bad Lieutenant film, Abel Ferrara, expressed dismay that the Herzog film was being made. Both Bad Lieutenant films were produced by Edward R. Pressman. (wiki)

imdb / rottentomatoes