The Eternal Present

Independent film and experimental cinema are romantic terms that get thrown around with distressing impunity but Otto Buj's 16mm mind-fuck, The Eternal Present, is an admirable example of both. It's also doubtlessly the weirdest movie to ever come out of Windsor, a city not known for its thriving avant-garde hipster subculture. But then neither is Missoula, Montana and it produced David Lynch. 　　 　　That is not to suggest that Buj's debut is on par with Eraserhead, but there are some interesting similarities. Not only is it entirely self-financed and populated with non-professional actors but the striking black and white photography, jumpy editing rhythms and defiantly elliptical storytelling hints at Lynch's approach. But Buj's protagonist is decidedly less iconic than the fright-quiffed Henry Spencer. He's a nondescript young writer named Tim (Craig Gloster) hired to process obituaries for a small newspaper. Tim's unremarkable appearance and demeanour code him as a familiar sort of white-collar wage slave, but The Eternal Present isn't invested in depicting twentysomething restlessness or workplace ennui. Instead, it insinuates that Tim might actually be playing a major role in the lives of the strangers whose deaths he catalogues: that he may be unwittingly causing them to die. 　　 　　From this intriguing postulation onward, the film slowly and hesitantly assumes the shape of a thriller. It's a vague thriller, sure: there's no "gotcha!" moment to bottle the ends, no great revelation to unite each instance of stylistic or narrative discontinuity. In other words, it's the sort of movie that's bound to frustrate some viewers and tantalize others. Considering the lengths to which most mainstream filmmakers go to avoid this sort of polarization, Buj should be congratulated for -- and not in spite of -- his magnum opus' wilful obscurity.