By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)
Opens July 10, 2020
Limited Release
* Spoiler Alert
There’s more than a simple existential crisis going on in Parallax. This film title is very telling because by definition, the term is about how an object can appear displaced relative to the observer when he or she even moves a few feet. In computer graphic design, it can create an illusion of depth. With this movie, it’s about reality bending in strange ways where Naomi (Naomi Prentice) feels out-of-place relative to the world moving on without her.
This lightly budgeted thriller shows it’s supernatural colours later. The visual composition is also telling, since it’s playing with the viewer’s understanding of what the word, parallax, means.
As an artist, Naomi says her paintings are like portals to other worlds. One touch, and she feels whisked away to that beach. In reality, she could be simply dreaming it…