Stranger 109

Aside from Jim Munroe’s well-known My Trip to Liberty City, there are few notable machinima films that utilize the GTA franchise. And the vast majority of films that have used the virtual worlds of Liberty City, Vice City or San Andreas mainly consist of stunt videos that fully exploit each game’s physics engine and multiple camera angles that track the vehicles as they bound through the air. While the stunt video aims to tantalize the eye with unbelievable jumps set to fast-paced music, Munroe chose to juxtapose the hyper-violent world of GTA with the banal form of the home movies one shares about their travels. With a dry and matter of fact tone, he narrates his adventures through Liberty City, discussing his participation in random acts of violence as tourist attractions. Though Munroe’s intent here is clearly comedic, the piece also calls attention to the absurd degree to which violence is trivialized in the game. Andre Pesch’s The Days After departs from both of these two examples that typify what comes from the GTA engine.

He avoids both comedy and vehicular acrobatics in his post-apocalyptic tale of two individuals who find each other after a flu epidemic wipes out most of the population. Set on the rooftops of the distinctive Los Santos skyline from GTA: San Andreas, the narrative unfolds almost entirely in the form of an internal monologue by the male protagonist Bogart. Excellently voice acted by Richard Grove, the narration does more than just reveal how the T40X virus killed everyone. His calm demeanor suggests not just a coping with the futility of the situation but a peace with it, as though not giving into the panic offers him the ultimate form of control. This nonchalance maintains consistent even when he encounters Ingrid, who also shares the same quiet resignation. Though the few dialog scenes between the two reveal the weakness of this engine with the lip syncing being approximate at best, Pesch makes great use of the sweeping camera as it floats through the desolate urban landscape. But rather than implement the typical stark mis-en-scene pioneered in sci-fi noir like Blade Runner and echoed in contemporary variations like Children of Men, he uses an ethereal lighting scheme with blown out skies that capture both the tranquility of Bogart’s delivery and the sterility that has inevitably been left by the virus. It is no surprise the the film was nominated for Best Cinematography at last year’s Machinima film festival. Add in a wonderful sound design that creates a consistent tone throughout the film, aided by the music from Overman, and you have a powerful narrative that ends in a final act of free will from two characters stuck in a seemingly impossible situation.