‘OBEX’ Review: Albert Birney’s Peculiar Genre Mash-Up Pays Homage To Analog Tech – Sundance Film Festival
deadline.com“There it is,” says Computer Conor, finding the advert for his modest computer-art service in the latest issue of Personal Computing while his dog, Sandy, snuffles on the sofa.
Though the aesthetic of OBEX—Albert Birney’s follow-up to the pastel-hued Strawberry Mansion (2021)—is grainy ’70s Eraserhead monochrome, appearances can be deceiving.
The year is 1987, with Reagan in the White House and Madonna in the charts, but Conor (played by Birney himself) is unaware.
A virtual shut-in, he sees life through a screen, even sending his neighbor Mary to do his grocery shopping. Flipping through the magazine, an advert for a new computer game catches his eye; illustrated with a gothic castle, a satanic goat’s head and human brain, it promises a breakthrough in interactive gaming: “Can you make it to the end of the maze and defeat the demon Ixaroth before he eats your mortal soul?” To take part, all Conor has to do is film himself from various angles and fill in a brief questionnaire: What is your name?
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