EIFF 78: Bulk

Whenever I saw him at EIFF, Ben Wheatley appeared to be thoroughly enjoying himself. This isn't surprising, given how eager the festival seemed to be in presenting him as a genuine cult director. For someone whose most recent credit was Meg 2: The Trench (with a reported budget of $129 million), the opportunity to return to his indie roots must have been a welcome change. EIFF audiences seemed equally enthusiastic to embrace him. Despite being the opener in the genre-friendly Midnight Madness section, Wheatley’s Bulk is not exactly a crowd-pleaser.

The film, shot in semi-secrecy and on a micro-budget in Wheatley’s hometown of Brighton, is certainly entertaining and could be considered a romp, though its idiosyncratic nature means it will appeal only to those with very specific tastes. Wheatley himself acknowledges this, noting the benefits of smaller budgets: the less money you have for a project, he joked during a Q&A, the fewer people you need to satisfy.

This isn’t to say that Bulk isn’t a charming piece of filmmaking. It’s an homage to classic noir films with a touch of New Wave irony (think Kiss Me Deadly crossed with Alphaville). The film features a complex plot involving a series of parallel dimensions, characters portraying multiple versions of themselves, and mysterious slips of paper guiding the protagonist on his Hero’s Journey. It’s all presented with a good dose of postmodern cheer, and the humor is clever and rewarding—if poking fun at Joseph Campbell’s monoplot is your kind of thing.

F. J. Ossang comes to mind due to the (mostly) black and white cinematography and noir influences, though here the inspiration is more whimsical and lacks the punkish edge of something like Dharma Guns. Bulk is more playful, with its charm hinging on model animation that Wheatley crafted and filmed himself in his kitchen after purchasing modeling kits from Amazon. Forced perspectives and other in-camera techniques complete the visual style, resulting in a film that is both tongue-in-cheek and affectionately cinephile, yet unmistakably personal.