OBEX

by Adam Barney

Filmmaker Albert Birney made quite an impression with his previous film, Strawberry Mansion, injecting whimsy and surrealism into a story about a government audit. Stuffed full of creatures and characters brought to life with an appealing DIY aesthetic, the film was a love letter to creating art and felt like it had been made by a less cynical Michel Gondry. It also made me excited for whatever Birney might be doing next.

OBEX is a black and white hallucination of a film that would be a perfect find if you were flipping channels at midnight and came upon it. It’s so weird that you’d wonder the next day if you actually watched it or just dreamed it up after some iffy late-night leftovers. It’s smaller in scale than Strawberry Mansion, but that is intentional as it is focused on one man’s odyssey to leave his home.

Conor (Birney) is a loner self-imprisoned in his home with his companion, a sweet dog named Sandy. His only apparent connection to the outside world is Mary (Callie Hernandez), a nice neighbor who delivers his groceries and tries to have conversations with him from the other side of his front door. Conor spends his days playing games on his old Macintosh and watching tapes from his vast VHS collection. One day he responds to an ad in a magazine about a new game that promises the adventure of a lifetime – OBEX.

OBEX appears to be quite dull as a computer game, but that is before the real adventure begins. A demon crawls out of Conor’s computer and kidnaps Sandy the dog and retreats to his nightmare castle beyond the dark forest. Conor must now face his fears and past traumas as he will risk everything to leave the safety of his home to go on a fantasy adventure to save poor Sandy.

Birney mashes up tropes from retro video games and the 80s to create an imaginative journey that has the right amount of madness to keep things interesting and rolling along. Conor must face off against evil skeletons and insect men with a sword that looks like it came from Spirit Halloween. He also makes friends with Victor, a guy who has an old television for a head, and a fairy (Hernandez, pulling double duty) who runs a shop that sells anything an adventurer might need. The cast is game and helps fill out the fantasy world Birney is building.

OBEX is a fun little journey about a man conquering his fears and rejoining the world. Not as crazy or stressful as Beau Is Afraid, OBEX wears its heart on its sleeve as a nostalgic adventure that feels like comfort cinema.