"The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing the contents seem to be", wrote Arthur C. Clarke in the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey. Alongside a surfeit of advanced predictions, Clarke was on the mark. To add to which, there are a number of intentional Kubrickian nods in co-writer/actor/director Benjamin Dickinson's second directorial feature after 2012's First Winter.
In science fiction thriller Creative Control, co-written with Micah Bloomberg, ad exec David, played by Dickinson, is given the task of constructing an advertising campaign around augmented reality system glasses. Self-proclaimed "disinformationist" and all-round entertainer Reggie Watts, playing himself, is hired to be the visionary creative force and face of the "Augmenta" brand. Watts isn't the only modern mixed-media figure here; David's boss Scott is played by Vice Magazine co-founder Gavin McInnes, while the man behind the Augmenta tech-glasses, Gabe, is played by Vimeo co-founder Jake Lodwick. Williamsburg in the very near future, to some, may appear achingly apocalyptic, awash with Brooklyn Lager, prophetic mammoth beards and "isn't-it-ironic" T-shirts. But in Creative Control, Williamsburg is littered with types whose self-serving maneuvers have been penned with a jocular flippancy. "Augmenta is not Main Street, it's Bedford Avenue." It is a snugly familiar Brooklyn district of the bigger New York City character, and in cahoots with the glasses, NYC is voyeuristically omniscient.
Overwhelmed by his workload, his drug intake, his domestic life with yoga instructor girlfriend Juliette (Nora Zehetner) and the provocative pull of New York City, David uses the prototype glasses for sexual stimulus, a growing addiction that feeds his obsession with co-worker Sophie (Alexia Rasmussen), who is also the girlfriend of his philandering photographer friend Wim (Dan Gill). Through David's tech lenses, we see Sophie transform into a sexually compliant avatar of his creation. Their clandestine, virtual affair is conducted at Williamsburg's Wythe Hotel, where the gap between the colorized apotheosis of Sophie and the film's mainstay of ravishing black and white, marks the spot between reality and fantasy. Adam Newport-Berra's cinematography dominates the film, holding it together with an ambitious aptitude that flits from night-time stalking to spectacularly sharp wide shots. So too does it absorb the broken intimacy of a relationship, perched on the outside of a glass box apartment. As his world becomes increasingly suppressed, more so by his own self-absorbed limitations, David loses his grip on what is real and unreal.
Composer Drazen Bosnjak has designed a climactic score. Handel's "Sarabande", the main theme used in Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, is put through through the Walter/Wendy Carlos synthetic grinder in a futuristic homage to A Clockwork Orange. While the plot explores territory upon which other memorable movies overlap, Dickinson's low-budget indie film is aesthetically bewitching with intense performances and a premise that fits the traceable partition between human craving and technological gratification.
