Room 237 – dir. Rodney Ascher, 2012

date: 02/08/2012 time: 14:30 place: PGE Cinema film program: world under canvas film program: the audience poll artistic program: films

The film proves that the mysterious “The Shining” by Stanley Kubrick from 1980 may be analysed ad infinitum. Subjective documentary presents a group of devoted fans and academics who discuss the plot in search of hidden meanings. It is an almost religious séance with a masterpiece of modern horror movie as a relic. Celluloid holy book is all that matters: a viewer may only hint at a draft interpretation which may still be changed after re-watching the film. A story of diabolic Jack Torrance confined for winter in a hotel with his family becomes a starting point of a wide exegesis. Kubrick’s film is all-embracing: colonialism, Freud, Holocaust, death and sex. Being simultaneously a homage and an ambitious interpretation attempt, “Room 237” is composed almost entirely of fragments of the fetish-like “The shining” and commentaries by cinema devotees.

Rodney Ascher (1971)
An American director. For almost a decade now he has been making genre-blurring films. His subjective documentary “Room 237” (2012) was first screened at Sundance Festival. His previous works comprise numerous independent short productions (e.g. “The S from Hell”), TV commercials, internet short comedies and music videos. In 2008 he curated the “Photo-Fictions” exhibition on narrative photography in Showcave Night Gallery.