Open Doom Crescendo: Angst, Death and Chaos

I sat down with Terry Chiu, the director of Open Doom Crescendo to chat about the film, outsider art and the state of independent cinema. 

Emily Perez (EP):  So why don't you just tell me a little bit more about the film, I've seen the trailer and the promotional materials, but why don't you tell me a little bit more about the film for someone that doesn’t know anything about it. 

Terry Chiu: Okay. Well, usually when people ask me what it's about, I kind of just fully assume, the, uh, the self-sabotage of, how inaccessible the, the art is. So I begin by  just saying the plot, which is: People battling to the death in a seemingly endless wasteland, searching for the embodiment of angst. And from there, I will get a  reaction one way or another, which is either fear, bewildered confusion or, genuine interest, uh, mixed with confusion.

And so it’s like a nice litmus test. But, it's pretty easy to, well, not easy, but it’s kind of like telling whether people are kind of into the idea or the kind of art it is.

But I'm, I'm assuming that the, the kind of things that the Comfort Station screens are really supportive and embracing of outsider art and alternative forms of storytelling and creation. So like I hope that what I'm contributing will fit in with that because at least from how it's felt like over here in Montreal, it just feels like I'm fighting a one man war, against an industry. At least in this local environment where it feels like I'm the only one trying to do the thing that I'm trying to do, which is take outsider art, through the form of cinema and do the most contrarian thing. To put in a nutshell, you know, it's either you have funding and then you can go and make your big, you know, like in industry approved or institution approved thing, right?

Or if you don't have the, the support or the permission, then you're expected to stay in your own lane and just make like, you know, your quiet, intimate little films, which is fine, and that's totally cool. It's just like, the problem I have is is the segregation of it all, and you're either in one camp or the other. As a person who like, you know, grew up watching genre cinema and being really into spectacle, but who also, has a deep appreciation for outsider art and low-fi metal music and all that.

So if you wanna partake in artistic culture, but then you also don’t let yourself make art because you don't necessarily have the privilege or the resources that that the 1% of the 1% have.

Then what, what is the choice, right? Do I, do I just make nothing at all? Or do I try to climb a ladder and think “Eventually I'll get the resources to make like a, a five minute black magic breakup movie” and then never be able to actually say any of the things I wanna say, or do I just fully assume where I'm coming from and the resources that I do have… Which for me, was essentially my life savings and the commitment of the band of like crazies who feel similarly enough.

And then you go and make just the most, as I call it, the most massive micro movie of all time in the fully self-effacing light.

And to be a statement of outsider art in the most spectacular way. Also, to be the evidence that you can go and make an epic work  like a famous a-hole would who would otherwise have the undying attention of  their audience already. By the time they're in their career and they've worked their way towards it.

EP: I think you bring up this in interesting distinction, and it obviously is something that we see a lot as a microcinema, but the fact that absurdity or genre film at this point - not all genre film, I'd say, I'd say there's still a decent amount of like, low budget horror, but, absurd or experimental film seem a luxury only permitted to already successful big budget filmmakers. 

There’s this obligation that the indie low budget stuff has to be intellectual or sentimental. And so when we see these like, kind of the original independent film of, you know, the sixties and seventies, it's, it's lost a little bit of that edge.

I think it's definitely one of the things we specialize in here at like Comfort Film is the independent and micro budget films that are still weird and have that spirit that has  been kind of marginalized in the film industry at present. I mean, there are some very nicely made and very well crafted micro-budget features that aren't trying to be genre films and work in their own way, but it’s always exciting to have that kind of spirit of renegade filmmaking alive.

TC: Yeah, not to politicize it, but it's almost parallel to the way that things are more divided than ever, right? Like even on a political level, it's like you're either on one extreme or the other.

EP: Definitely.

TC: Either you need to have the resources and then you can go and make what whatever you want, or you have nothing, and then you go and make your little thing. Then with that you don't get to explore the kind of sensibilities that or with the edginess that maybe you'd have the confidence to do if you were in some kind of, cultural discourse that, that encourages those kind of like sensibilities, right?

TC: I was thinking about this specifically last night, as I'm working on promotional stuff and editing montages together, it's pretty apparent, you know, with a little distance, when I look over clips from the film at how absurdly it will go from really intentional formalism to just the most like home video, like crude composition, right? 

But I felt like a, a kind of a sense of non-arrogant pride in that.

When you’re creating a thing that can both welcome thoughtfully constructed aesthetics and then the next second also just fully celebrate that spirit of going out and making videos with your cousins and your friends along the streets. You have that same energy that you would when you come up with jokes with your friends and then you're just on the spot just doing improv.

When you're like doing jokes with your friends and it's like, it's the funniest shit, right? Suddenly your friends are just as funny as actors like the ones you would see on TV and movies. Cuz there is that very, in the moment energy and connection. So if you kind of channel that and you put it all in one cornucopia, then you're encouraging this through like the art, and by people watching it or listening to it, you're encouraging this type of discourse that makes space for everyone. 

Just, just creating this dialogue that, you know, art doesn't have to be one extreme or the other.

EP: Yeah, for sure. When we look at things like cult film, we see this, right? When you take away the strict formalism of, of major motion picture, I think that's why people have that such affection for genre film or cult film because they, they feel a closeness when you see people making movies with their friends, they let  the audience in, without that  strict formality all the time. I think that it gives some longevity to this type of filmmaking because there's something special there. There's something kind of transcendent about not, not having that rigid formalism that we're so used to in film all the time.

TC: Yeah. The illusion that you're watching a movie and no matter what you do, you can't think about it, right? It wants you to believe that it wants you to buy into like the, when it comes down to it, just the lie, like it's just the projection of light, but it really wants you to, to believe that this is real. By then by doing that, you create this wall that, that people can never get through. The creatives and the storytellers are almost on this like, different plane of existence than you, but if you break down that wall, you make it very clear - not by way of sabotaging the the film itself but it's similar to maybe like skit shows or lo-fi, there is this, this self-awareness so that if it knows what it is to a degree, it's almost inviting you to be a participatory audience member. You're like, you're in it, they're with you, you know, like you can reach over, like in a metaphorical sense, you can reach into it and they're like reaching out. There's not really a wall. It'd be like interactive theater, right? So fluids flying around, it's <laugh>, some of it might splash the audiences. And you’d apologize and pass around, you know, like napkin, like towels after.

EP:  So can you just tell me a little bit about the process of making the film?

TC: I had just finished production on my first feature, Mangoshake, and I already hated it and I started imagining images of being in a wasteland, I don’t know if it was metaphorical - it’s just how I felt at the time. There was one section of the film that was filmed in similar-ish area, that was a stepping stone into the idea of putting an entire narrative in the stalled housing development. From there the most abstract sense of Open Doom Crescendo was conceptualized, and it became a thing I kept hostage until I finished Mangoshake. Before I had even finished, I knew Open Doom was the thing I was destined to make - in the most absurd way of saying it. It felt like the culmination of  a creative ethos that I was trying to follow, because I didn’t know what the end game was, right? In this practice of outsider art, I understood very early on that it was not a thing that was going to last - because people are going to get older, they’ll go and have their well adjusted lives, they’ll make babies and houses and divorce papers and at a certain point I’m going to be the only semi-psychotic person in my life who still wants to do this kind of thing. 

Open Doom was like the limit, it was like the final thing. It was a lot of encouragement, like “if this is the last thing we ever make together” which it is… you can still try to make the one definitive that you can make in the time you have. 

The process was pretty much, “why don’t we try and do something useful as outsider artists” and go and make the most “epic” last movie ever. A lot of the approach whether it was the title of the film, it’s length, it’s scope, the sequencing, it felt like “let’s do this now, because it’s never going to happen again”. 

EP: Was it all shot in Montreal?

TC: It was all shot in the greater Montreal area, half of it was shot in Montreal, half was shot in Laval.

It’s supposed to be this schizophrenic, amalgamation of different wastelands.

 I thought we’d do something useful with the corruption that is the stalled housing development construction project of greater Montreal. And immortalize the environment, because there’s something special about - not only in a transgressive sense - reclaiming land that has been either expropriated or taken for granted o bought up by new developers. While thinking about heritage places that are swallowed up by condo developers, being able to make something without permission on this type of land, like in the most illegal way… Because within in 10, 20 years it's gonna be, it's just gonna be like the most boring, vapid thing. And so to make something on that at that time is a reflection of hopefully, a time capsule and the definitiveness of film, not only in its ethos but in the physical space that it's being shot in. 

TC: Cuz like no one can go and, and you know, film in the, those same locations and even if they did go, it'd be different. It wouldn't look the same by the time. That’s actually, because it was shot over like a couple years this film. So there are the kind of specific places that  look different from year to year. Then not only does that provide new shooting locations, even though you're in the same spot technically.

EP: Yeah. That's interesting, especially as a conceptual wasteland changing over time and also over space. Is there anything else you wanted to add before we wrap up?

TC:  I think like the big thing I would, humbly, leave with is… 

Because I don't wanna make it about me, I really hope that people who believe in, in this case, this film and therefore the like, the greater kind of concept of community art and outsider art and fringe art. Like the art that doesn't get the spotlight, right?  The people who engage with it and then go and wanna present it, they are the ones making actual underground change in terms of what gets shown. 

 I'm just like wholeheartedly grateful and, and I really want to fully show up for and reciprocate the action of, of being seen and being given the space. I guess like going back to your question, I would humbly ask of people that if they get something out of this or they, they believe in it, then, then just please give it a voice. 

Because like that that you show this or you engage with art like this, then you are perpetuating this positive change in culture of what gets seen, it really is a, a ricochet a cyclical thing. 

Yeah, I just really hope people will give it, uh, the a chance cuz I know like all shit aside all the things I've said aside like I, I get it, you know, like the movie's three hours, no one knows me, <laugh>, it looks like it was filmed on a toaster. It's like I get it, you know? I, we would not have done this film if  we didn't believe in the goal of what it is as a thing that should get to, to have the same space and patience and same reward as, you know, any kind of other type of work that people love and, give time to. So yeah. I just hope people will give it a chance. 

Join us on June 21st at 6:45 inside Comfort Station for Open Doom Crescendo, and stay for a Q&A with director Terry Leung. Keep up with Terry’s work @crescendoangst. Attendance is free. Copies of Terry’s first work Mangoshake will be available for purchase at the screening.