Film Review: Inventive, Complex World of ‘The Institute’

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Average: 5 (1 vote)

CHICAGO – “To those dark horses with the spirit to look up and see, a recondite family awaits.” While the Sundance Film Festival goes on all through Park City, a select group of truly independent films is unspooling up on Main Street under the banner of Slamdance. One of the more interesting Slamdance selections this year was the great “The Institute,” a quasi-documentary about an “Alternate Reality Game” that took place in San Francisco from 2008 to 2011.

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 4.0/5.0
Rating: 4.0/5.0

Playing not unlike “Exit Through the Gift Shop” or “Resurrect Dead,” “The Institute” is a mindf**k. How much of it is real? How much is staged? What’s the purpose of the real-life role-playing game in the first place? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions but I thoroughly enjoyed “The Institute” nonetheless or, to be honest, more so because of the willingness on the part of the filmmakers to embrace confusion instead of providing facts.

StarRead Brian Tallerico’s full review of “The Institute” in our reviews section.

Flyers went up around San Francisco that led people to a non-descript office for The Jejune Institute, where they sat and watched an induction video like they were joining the Dharma Initiative. Being warned not to open the drawer in the desk next to them enough times caused new players to, of course, open the drawer, and the game began. And what a game. Clues sent people on scavenger hunts around town that eventually told a story of a missing girl and prophesized a new way of looking at the world. People would pick up phones, say a key word, and a mini flash mob of dancers would erupt. The game even contains its own vocabulary, adding weight to words & phrases like “nonchalance,” “unexpected novelty,” and “the concept of elsewhere.” When a player says, without much irony, “Then the Sasquatch gave me the transcript,” you know you’re DEEP down the rabbit hole.

StarContinue reading for Brian Tallerico’s full “The Institute” review.

“The Institute” was directed by Spencer McCall and played at the 2013 Slamdance Film Festival.

The Institute
The Institute
Photo credit: Sony Pictures

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