Looks like John Malkovich is making a film similar to the YouTube projects I made in my broadcast classes in college: a few people will see it, then it will never see the light of day.

Or, at least no one alive with a memory of this thing coming out will see it.

In a move that I can only call ‘pretentious at best,’ actor and director John Malkovich (who is well known for his roles in movies, such as Dangerous Liaisons and Burn After Reading) will be releasing a film at Cannes which will be shown, then will not be shown for another hundred years.

Apart from Cannes, it is set to make a small tour around the globe before being locked away until it is time for its release again.

I have problems with this.

Now before the hipsters and Malkovich fan boys and girls (which I am honestly dying to know if they exist) come for me and claiming I simply don’t “get” the project or I am too much of a pleb to understand this kind of art statement, go sit your ass down somewhere. I do not have time for you.

I can totally see how this could be an interesting experiment, not only socially but technologically. If they wanted to, they could track to see how the film would age, but physically and subject wise, or the course of 100 years. It would be like it is premiering all over again. And Malkovich is a great actor. He isn’t some lightweight, and he has made some great films in his lifetimes (seriously, if you have never see Dangerous Liaisons, go watch it right now).

But, at the same time, this whole project reeks of self importance and aggrandizement. This isn’t meant as an experiment, it is a way for people to flock to these film festivals to see a film that their friends won’t see. Every critic and film fanatic who would see if would get to be “that guy” who saw the once-in-a-lifetime film at Cannes. It’s the same reason people want to see comets that pass by Earth that are only set to appear every 50-or-so years: they want to be the only ones.

In an interview, Malkovich explained that the film is indeed an experiment to see what the world will be like in 100 years. However, there are issues with this experiment. How will you insure that the film will be criticized under the right conditions when it is released? What if our movie technology is no longer compatible with the technology of the current day when it is release? What if it is never released because in 100 years no one gives a shit about who John Malkovich was and it just gets forgotten in some rusty vault?

The point is, you don’t need to do this to a film for the future to critique how we would perceive time 100 years from now. We already do this with films from the dawn of movie history. You can go onto Netflix and see remastered films from the silent movie era . Art isn’t meant to be locked away, it is meant to be shared, critiqued and studied. Depriving a film of those years of viewing doesn’t seem like you care about the quality of the film, rather the gimmick of locking it away.

And when you look at the first glimpse provided here, it infuriates you even more. The affects look cheap. It just looks like shots of Malkovich and his co-star walking and running in “futuristic” tunnels. If you are going for a honest interpretation as to what you think the future will look like, put more effort into your surroundings. The film is supposed to look like 2115, but all I can see is 2005 in the presentation.

Honestly, I kind of want to see it, just so I can make up stuff that happened in it in a review. How do you know it was made up? You can’t prove it.

My guess is if this film does show 100 years from now, our ancestors will be just as confused as we were with what they were trying to go for.