The Fearless Absurdity of A24
When a group of humans come together to make something, we’re usually forced to temper the creative momentum with one of several things: Money (that goes in and is expected to come out), sufficient motivation, or fear of failure.
For a while now, A24 has pierced their stake into new soil, deciding none of those things are actually relevant when you trust in the people you’re making stuff with. The word ‘stuff’ functions to casually, and humbly, encapsulate the menu of work A24 is dishing out — from the spicy voyeur into a highly-stylized, slasher/thriller/joy-ride that is X, the tongue-numbing shroom-tripping horror shot in pure daylight, or to the latest multi-verse feast that everyone and their great aunt is telling you to watch.
This isn’t a review specifically for Everything Everywhere All at Once, but the one thing I will say about this film is this: Its force and magnitude leave you to ponder how exactly they went about making it. If you stand in front of Michelangelo’s David or Pietà, the secondary thought that invades your stream of consciousness is most likely: “How?” Because what it takes to whittle a slab of marble into a form — that could maybe breathe life if you glanced away — is the same fortitude the people behind A24 use to craft movies (yea, I did just make that comparison). Or when Alex Honnold scaled El Capitan in free-solo fashion. (With this movie, the Daniels duo did it in under 40 days. On average, a typical film takes over 100+ days to shoot). It’s unbridled creativity that fuels the engine and gets the plane off the ground, but it’s the highly technical skills within the craft that lands it.
You are either all-in, or you shouldn’t even be here. There is no “let’s take it down a few notches,” or “think ____, but more/less ____.” In my head, it’s A24 who is chasing down the nascent filmmakers and storytellers who are making cool shit, and not the other way around. It’s the difference between picking from the lot of potential suitors with deep pockets who knock at your door, or chasing after the one perhaps not interested in just the dollars involved.
Perhaps my naiveté is showing, but I’m convinced A24 is one of the few studios creating a contemporary cult following by attracting viewers in a category they’ve carved out themselves, and not one that already currently exists. Hollywood has always been and will always be a business in its most reductive form, so money matters. But if you can continually set the bar higher each time and see to it that the “weird shit” actually gets made — you’ll find yourself in a goldmine of audiences who are dying to see something different.
In all fields of creative pursuit — music, entertainment, writing, gaming, etc. — it’s easy to forget how difficult it actually is for a Silly Little Idea to materialize into a Thing That Gets Seen by the masses. The gap between ‘Expectation’ and ‘Reality’ is often a chasm that’s miles-wide, and what also stops a lot of people from getting past the jumping point.
So when this feat is somehow accomplished with near-Olympian efforts from a lot of people, who care a lot about how it turns out, it gives me hope for the future of cinema. As things are opening back up, A24 is reminding people just how precious going to the movies can be, and a part of the human experience that (I hope) will never lose its luster. It’s rare, and special, to sit amongst a bunch of strangers in the dark and give your undivided attention to a work of art you have zero obligation to see, and open your mind to a story someone, somewhere wishes to tell.
It’s with this fearless absurdity that A24 is the walk and the talk. They’re cultivating a fertile meadow so important for pushing the limits of filmmaking, the stories circulating our break-rooms, and the “stuff” that brings all of us together. ❤️
