On God
2024 · 10m · USA
Directed by Andrew Theodore Balasia
Genres: comedy, drama, thriller
Tones: darkly comic, melancholic, surreal, tense
A man named Kream awakens from a gunshot-induced coma pulsing with love and forgiveness, determined to leave his violent past behind — but his two homegirls are baffled by his transformation and push for revenge.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Kaleidoscopic WorldStar-meets-Waves redemption fugue — that tonal collage could really cook or it could be the most exhausting ten minutes of the year. The reach is interesting.
Balasia's tonal collage approach blending WorldStarHipHop interludes with deconstructed pop and horror-thriller tropes pitches itself as Hiro Murai-adjacent. Ambitious in register; the question is whether the tonal kaleidoscope coheres.
10:13, kaleidoscopic tonal collage mixing WorldStarHipHop interludes and deconstructed pop — the formal promiscuity has to be tightly cut to feel like a deliberate fracture rather than scrap. Without seeing it (age-gate-style page), I'm trusting the SOTW pickup; the premise of post-coma forgiveness has potential.
Reviews
A stunning production and the most haunting use of a Eurythmics song in cinematic history.
A kaleidoscope of tones, toxicity, and tenderness, both funny and poignant, in which a man awakens from a gunshot-induced coma, determined to turn the page on his violent past.
Festivals
- Fantasia Film Festival 2024