Think
of this as what happens after the famous 1984
Apple commercial. Big Brother has
fallen. Unfortunately, Henry Dremmel is
no Winston Smith. Adjusting to a
post-dystopian world will be difficult for him in Sacha Feiner’s short film A Better World (trailer here), which screens
during the 2013 Brooklyn Film Festival.
Dremmel
the tool, works for the Domestic Denunciation Program. All days he monitors security cameras,
reporting even the slightest deviations from the norm. One fateful night, Dremmel wakes to the sound
of fireworks. The regime has
fallen. Freedom has broken out, but the
Denunciator cannot handle it. He prefers
the structure of his drab, harshly regimented former existence.
Audiences
are unlikely to see a film more explicitly associating the compulsive need for
security with oppressive statism in a month of Sundays. What’s even more mind-blowing is that it
hails from Belgium, the EU’s happy host nation.
Regardless, writer-director Feiner really cuts to the heart of the
matter. Dremmel is not an odious
villain. A pathetic figure, he is the
final victim of a de-humanizing collectivist system.
Better World is also quite an
impressive looking production. Olan
Bowland’s bleak, washed-out cinematography and Julia Irribaria’s imposing sets create
a perfectly Orwellian environment.
Almost a prop himself, Vincent Kohler is appropriately cringey and
clammy as Dremmel.
