Often creating an embedded feel around the subjects, watching the movie in virtual reality gives you the depth of feeling like a nearby bystander. Almost every shot in this film has a perspective, with no angle wasted in adding to the tension and scale.ĭepicting the 1993 attempt to capture Mohamed Farrah Aidid in Mogadishu, the movie centers on the crash of two Black Hawk helicopters and a squad of Rangers trapped behind enemy lines. Starring a who’s who of up and coming actors and seasoned veterans, the performers went through Ranger and Special Forces training respective of their roles in the movie. In virtual reality, however, Black Hawk Down's cinematography and practical battles make for a mesmerizing experience. With a commitment to military realism and a superb eye for the smallest details, Ridley Scott’s depiction of the Battle of Mogadishu is an epic film no matter what scale you watch it in.
Robot, a show with its own unique perspective and very impressive VR experience.
Esmail is perhaps best known for creating the USA series Mr. The film stands out as a must watch in VR though because of the unique structure and subtleties formulated by the director, Sam Esmail. The sweet and human comedy isn’t much more than a character study, but the details make it an engrossing experience.
With subtle lighting effects and a disassociated timetable, the movie is designed to play like a dream or memory you can’t recall quite right. Comet hops around through the pair's timeline and into alternative “What ifs?” until you begin to feel as though these might be scenarios playing out in the characters' heads. Portrayed with charming appeal by Emmy Rossum and Justin Long, the couple plays out the ins and outs of a six year relationship. The film Comet is the simple romance of two people who find one another at a meteor shower in Los Angeles. With other virtual delights on the menu, as well as mesmerising digital art and electronica from avant-garde artist Betty Apple, Fringe Focus Taiwan is an eclectic and adventurous sample of the emerging field of VR art.Not everything we do in VR has to be some super immersive battle against an alien horde. It’s lively entertainment, even if its interactive aspect remains embryonic.
Set in the build-up to a Taiwanese wedding, the piece involves the search for a biddable android bridesmaid and soon turns from cyber-soap into mordant satire.įrench director Gaelle Mourre channels a peculiar flavour of marriage madness (popularised in such films as Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet and, more recently, Crazy Rich Asians) with droll performances from a cast of Taiwanese TV and movie stars. Perhaps the most imaginative work is Mechanical Souls (★★★), which envisages a post-human future. Most of the artistry manifests the complex landscape of feeling in all-male saunas, so that even if the performances don’t float your boat, the way In The Mist recreates the excitement and ennui such venues can inspire makes it fascinating as a spot of erotic anthropology. It can’t escape being classified VR pornography – sure to be one of the biggest money-spinners in our virtual future if the internet is any guide – but it is not without emotive ambition.
For anyone who wants to know what it’s like in an all-male sex venue, this is as good as it gets without being there.ĭirector Chou Yung-Ten has created a stylish and disorienting work, full of artfully constructed tableaux of individuals, couples and groups of men having sex. In The Mist (★★★) is an X-rated trip into the underworld of Taiwanese gay saunas. “Nature porn” paves the way for literal gay porn. It’s an inviting and informative introduction to Tao culture that flaunts the panoramic majesty of the island’s steep and verdant hills, its underwater reefs and forbidding blue-black sea, stunningly rendered through the enveloping sensory immediacy of VR. Thrust into the maritime rhythms of indigenous life, you’ll find yourself in backyards, among chickens and dogs, as the community prepares salted fish snacks for the annual flying fish festival. The short documentary Offing (★★★½) submerges us in the natural beauty of remote Orchid Island, where the Tao people struggle to preserve their distinctive culture as islanders leave for the big smoke. The showcase of Taiwanese digital artists includes an exotic flight for virtual tourists keen to take off before the pandemic-induced logjam clears on international travel. That prospect may send a dystopian chill down your spine, but Fringe Focus Taiwan provides an intriguing glimpse into VR’s aesthetic possibilities.