Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

An interactive adventure that might just drive you insane

Hey guys, I’m back with another post (about time, Sarah!!) and this one is quite special. The movie I’m going to talk about, Bandersnatch, is an interactive movie. Meaning? You’re the one making the decisions for the protagonist, so his fate is completely in your hands. It all depends on what you choose, what kind of movie you’re going to see.

First things first: I didn’t enjoy watching Bandersnatch. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t even mean that in a negative way. It’s just the ugly truth. And I don’t even think that this movie, like anything in the Black Mirror world really, was designed for the viewers to actually enjoy it. Unlike the series though, this movie doesn’t take us ahead in time, into the near (or sometimes far) future, but instead it takes us back to the 1980s. It doesn’t play with the dangers and consequences of new technologies, but works with old ones and rather explores the twisted mind of its protagonist. So it’s f-ed up in a whole other way and sometimes that was a bit too much for me. But that’s a matter of taste.
The first choices you have to make are quite simple. You have to pick the cereal for breakfast or choose what band you want to listen to. Accordingly, later on you’ll see a TV ad for the cereal you picked or buy a record of the band you chose. Those details (amongst other factors of course) show how much thought and work went into this movie and I certainly loved that! As the action proceeds, you’re faced with more important and life- altering decisions. It all starts with the decision you have to make at Tuckersoft, whether or not you want to work in the company and develop your game there. I’m not going to spoiler you here, all I’ll say is: I chose wrong.
In case you choose wrong, there’s kind of a loop back and you start again from the point where you left off. At first I found that a bit irritating, as I thought “my” character should have to live with the wrong decision now, just as I’d have to in real life. No one can go back and just choose again. Yet, the way they designed this loop back is brilliant in itself. It seems like the characters remember having been there in this situation before, like it’s one big déjà-vu.

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The amount of different outcomes the movie can have knocks your socks off. The following map illustrates how many choices and outcomes there are. I know you’re not able to actually read anything there, but that’s a measure of trying not to spoiler you! 😀

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I can’t even begin to wrap my head around the amount of planning, how many hours of filming the same scenes with different scenarios and respectively how much video material for the poor editors went into/came out of this work. It is truly astounding and deserves a whole lot of praise. Nothing in the movie suffered from the fact that it needed this much planning and thinking through. The images are amazing, the editing is great, the sounddesign is perfect, the acting is outstanding… everything is awesome and technically fantastic.

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So, why didn’t I enjoy it if everything is that awesome? Well, because it’s… exhausting. When I heard about an interactive movie in which you decide in which way the action is headed, I thought about an epic adventure movie with rather shallow storytelling. Now, I’m a true advocate of good storytelling and usually I don’t really like movies that don’t involve this deeper level or whose storytelling simply sucks. But it doesn’t have to suck to be fun, do you get my point? Bandersnatch works brilliantly as a psychological thriller, that’s kind of artsy fartsy, arthouse style (which I like). For me personally it didn’t work that well as an interactive movie, as I found it far too complex to even be able to think it through while making the decisions. I was constantly overwhelmed, confused and stressed about making the next decision cause I hadn’t even been able to comprehend the consequences of my last decision before I got to the next one already. In the end, I even killed the protagonist on purpose, because I just wanted it to be over! 😀

All in all I’d say that Bandersnatch is a true piece of art that is brilliantly produced and filmed and deserves all its attention. Personally, I think it would have worked better as a movie without the interactive elements, as I found it asked a bit too much too quickly from its audience. Then again, this might just be the thrill of it and the whole intention behind it. After all, it’s kind of a big Black Mirror episode and I don’t even bother to wonder about those any more… 😀

I hope you enjoyed this post more than I enjoyed watching Bandersnatch! 😀 Let me know about your experiences with the interactive film in the comments!

All images used in this post are copyrighted by Netflix!