In the town of St. Gabriel, in the Autonomous Province of Michigan, a beautiful still life of economies and privilege on the verge of ruin through the forces of folly, a documentary filmmaker is videotaping members of a local theatre group as they create an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. In the process of making his documentary, his film becomes enmeshed in stories of conspiracy and murder revolving around an old man suffering from dementia, his son, and his grandson. Simultaneously, within both the town and the old man, the spirits of Halloween and Christmas are running together. Strange scenes are being acted out in a series of masquerades, an ongoing festival season of mourning and excess being mysteriously presided over by an enigmatic figure, seemingly part human, part angel, and part trickster.
This is a synopsis, but what is it a synopsis of?
Masks in the Sun was not simply a movie in the traditional sense. It used film to lead a theater audience to encounter feelings common to those with dementia on one hand, and the folly of algorithm-driven, melancholic conspiracy culture on the other. It remains a moving portrait of this culture from a time when it was said to be libertarian and before it had discovered its true self.
Here is a review from the local paper in which I thought the journalist was open and fair to what she had seen. It was published in the week before the first screening.
Click here to see this local review.
Added to the audience’s experience after watching the 2-hour, 20-minute film, there were masked figures at theater exits handing those leaving a letter written by an adversary of the director, telling them they had all been fooled.
Click here to see this letter.
Among the audience members was a local woman who insisted she was offended for aesthetic rather than political reasons. Her response via an editorial says quite a bit about a culture that was outwardly becoming increasingly suspicious, cruel and committed to destructive folly, but at its heart was (and remains) full of lost and desperate brooding and melancholy.
