The rules of this netherworld denote themselves, aboriginal on, via a nondescript partition sign. “Do not place immoderate anomalies,” it says. “If you find an anomaly, crook backmost immediately.” An anomaly, the Lost Man realizes, tin beryllium a visual, aural, oregon situational discrepancy of immoderate kind: a airy fixture tilted astatine a bizarre angle, a doorway that swings unfastened without warning. Every clip helium confirms that the corridor is anomaly-free and keeps walking—or recognizes a deviation from the accustomed signifier and retreats successful the other direction—he is rewarded with a marker of progress: a motion that reads “0,” past “1,” past “2,” leading, presumably, each the mode up to the elusive “8.” If helium makes a mistake, his advancement resets to “0” and the full Sisyphean ordeal reboots. We scarcely request reminding that “8” is an upright infinity symbol.
The Lost Man is trapped, then, successful thing of a hybrid puzzle: an flight country by mode of a diabolical representation test. Kawamura and the accumulation decorator Ryo Sugimoto person tweaked and expanded upon the game’s spare ocular elements, updating, among different objects, the partition posters wherever respective of the trickiest anomalies lie. One poster is present a people of M.C. Escher’s “Möbius Strip II,” which depicts 9 reddish ants marching up and down an endless loop of metal; similar the strains of Ravel’s “Boléro” that play implicit the film’s opening and closing moments, the representation is meant to spot america successful a suitably circular framework of mind.
These are thematically on-the-nose gestures, but Kawamura, dissimilar the game’s creators, doesn’t spot a premium connected subtlety—or, for that matter, interactivity. As assemblage members, we are, of course, watching the Lost Man fig retired clues and past take whether to spell guardant oregon backward, alternatively than making those decisions for ourselves. For each that, there’s nary nonaccomplishment successful engagement. Kawamura and Hirase look to person perceived the immersive limitations of the movie medium—and, alternatively than warring those limitations, adapted their communicative accordingly. What they’ve emerged with is the uncommon representation that feels astatine erstwhile existent to and yet subversive of its source.
It wasn’t until aft I’d seen Kawamura’s movie—and idly played a fewer rounds of The Exit 8 connected my phone—that I afloat appreciated the grade and quality of that subversion. Some of it has to bash with the understated grace of Ninomiya’s show arsenic the Lost Man, whose gentleness of spirit, adjacent nether anxiousness and duress, rang a distant bell. (It took maine a infinitesimal to admit him arsenic the histrion who played Saigo, an untested, good-hearted Second World War soldier, successful Clint Eastwood’s “Letters From Iwo Jima,” from 2006.) But determination are different deviations arsenic well. The Lost Man isn’t the lone 1 who assumes power of the film’s narrative, which is divided into 3 chapters, each centered connected a antithetic figure. One of them is the aforementioned passerby successful the corridor, known present arsenic the Walking Man (Yamato Kochi), who, acold from being conscionable a phantom projection, winds up embarking connected his ain tragic adventure.
To uncover much would beryllium unwise. Suffice to accidental that “Exit 8” toys with a saltation connected the Fregoli delusion, successful which a idiosyncratic comes to fishy that the radical astir them represent a azygous malign entity. (The conception of the Fregoli was vividly explored successful Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson’s aptly titled “Anomalisa.”) Within the parameters of a game—where non-player characters fundamentally relation arsenic antithetic disguises for, and manifestations of, a azygous communicative engine—such paranoia mightiness not beryllium unjustified. But successful Kawamura’s telling, astatine slightest 2 of the N.P.C.s crook retired to person an idiosyncratic consciousness. The effect is to nudge “Exit 8” person to the physical, analog world, the 1 wherever the strangers astir america are flesh-and-blood creatures with dreams, desires, stories, and sufferings of their own. These see the unnamed, dark-suited metro passengers we spot astatine the start, galore of whom look silently up oregon down astatine their phones. Some of them, you imagine, mightiness beryllium playing a crippled of their own.
“Exit 8” is frankincense an indictment of societal apathy and bystander syndrome; the film, astir of which takes spot successful a maze of underground tunnels, warns america not to succumb to a much metaphorical benignant of passageway vision. It besides argues, with unapologetic sincerity, for the peculiar attraction and extortion of children, and implies that those who wantonness the astir susceptible among america are worthy of extreme—perhaps adjacent eternal—punishment. It scarcely seems coincidental that the Lost Man gets mislaid soon aft failing to basal up for a parent and her baby, and conscionable arsenic he’s confronted with his ain situation of impending parenthood. Kawamura makes the constituent explicit precocious successful the proceedings, with a hallucinatory outdoor series that concisely removes america from the bid presumption altogether—easily the story’s astir glaring structural and stylistic anomaly. Was it this scene’s earnest ode to the quality of fatherhood oregon the sheer sensory alleviation of a breach successful the claustrophobic mise en scène that pushed maine implicit the borderline into tears? Perhaps it was simply the mode it underscores the film’s astir poignant and perplexing contradiction. To cull immoderate anomaly, thing mysterious oregon unusual, Kawamura suggests, is to succumb to a soul-crushing, self-serving conformity—and to withhold possibilities of decency, discovery, and emotion that marque immoderate crippled worthy playing, beingness precise overmuch included. ♦
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