One of the final assignments given to freshmen, including this critic, in Spatial Dynamics, or more plainly the “3D” class at Rhode Island School of Design, was to create an “egg tool.” The object the student creates, crafted from wood, must do three things: pick up, break and whisk an egg – all in one. The purpose of the assignment is to examine the dividing line between design and utility. How do you craft an object that can achieve all these tasks efficiently, whilst still creating an appealing work of art whose form comments upon itself, either in origin or in purpose? In many ways, the physical and existential scenario Willem Dafoe faces in Inside, the narrative directorial debut of Vasilis Katsoupis, is a more extreme version of this dilemma. Nemo (Dafoe), an art thief, becomes trapped in a collector’s highly secured penthouse due to a mechanical malfunction during a heist. Surrounded only by contemporary artwork and with an increasingly limited access to food and water, can he use the art as a physical means to escape from this modernist death trap?
Access, and by that notion, utility, has long been a contentious debate within the art world. Inside has the admirable ambition to comment upon that dichotomy, but whether it achieves any true insight is questionable. On one hand, it can be seen as a socioeconomic commentary on the reclamation of even the most exclusive artwork as a utilitarian tool. Because we’re treated to very little backstory on Nemo’s character, he can easily be seen as an everyman whose reaction to the penthouse is much like the viewer. The pieces surrounding him are abstract, arguably pretentious. In the absence of basic necessities, their presence taunts him with an almost hierarchical disdain. They remain motionless and constant against the ticking clock of his own mortality, and by taking them apart, perhaps he can save his own life.
But one gets the sense Katsoupis’ aims weren’t that straightforward. What context we are given about Nemo comes in an opening voice-over, set against close-ups of the various textures and surfaces present in the penthouse. He recounts how the only thing he’s kept from childhood is his sketchbook, stating: “Cats die, music fades, but art is for keeps.” Art, unless it’s time-based, is designed to last. The greatest insight one can gain, for instance, into the interiority of a group of cavemen that lived 13,000 years ago is the mosaic of handprints they left behind on cave walls. The universality of that ancient expression to resonate with people, even in the modern day, is one of the significant powers of art.
Throughout Inside, Nemo builds a structure in the middle of the penthouse with the purpose of reaching the skylight, using everything from furniture to paintings to achieve his goal. Nemo’s structure is ultimately not only a means of escape, but a work of art in and of itself, an increasingly elaborate still life sculpture that expresses his desire for freedom and destruction. The strongest images Katsoupis’ film conveys are that which utilize the penthouse to illustrate Nemo’s increasingly unstable headspace, creating a physical and mental prison he transforms, almost through insanity, into his own exhibition.
Still, Inside is at the end of the day a genre movie, and this is where it begins to falter. Dafoe is one of the most fascinating actors working today, and his presence does a lot to make the film work, at least initially. Even as Nemo remains a relative blank slate, Dafoe’s distinctive face alone makes him compelling, and the 67-year-old actor brings an intense physicality to the role that matches the film’s unconventional energy. There are some darkly comedic and inspired beats, such as a refrigerator that plays “Macarena” any time it’s held open for too long (a great idea), but once this gag is played out six or seven times, what becomes apparent is that Inside doesn’t have much to offer outside of its heady ideas.
Despite Dafoe’s commitment, what should be exciting quickly grows tedious. The repetitive and frankly masturbatory tone Katsoupis creates through Nemo’s increasingly hopeless attempts begs analysis but struggles to generate thrills, a significant issue when you’re making a survival film. Some admirably unpleasant imagery aside, from the moment we enter into an extended dream sequence in the second half, it feels like the 105-minute film is stalling for time under the veil of profundity. And that’s before Inside simply just ends, leaning on an ambiguous conclusion that’s open-ended to the point of bafflement.
Filmed in the midst of the pandemic, Inside carries the distinct marks of being a “Covid movie,” albeit one with a more creative premise. Focus Features will have a tough sell, with a one-man cast and contained setting that mirrors an isolation we’ve all grown tired of. Ironically, Inside falls prey to some of the same modern art clichés it satirizes, whether in its spare and shapeless narrative, or its insistence upon its own downbeat conclusions about the purpose, or lack thereof, of art. As Nemo scrawls on a wall towards the end, referring to the penthouse which he’s thoroughly demolished, “for me, it was a prison.” As for the viewer, the same could be said about the film itself.
Photo courtesy of Focus Features
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