Reality+
2014 · 22m · Francia
Directed by Coralie Fargeat
Genres: dark comedy, satire, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, provocative
In the near future, the brain chip 'Reality+' acts on its user's sensory perceptions, allowing them to see themselves with a perfect physique. Everyone equipped with the chip can see their new appearance, and see each other's — but the chip is only active 12 hours a day.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Fargeat takes the tired 'technology makes us shallow' premise and flips it into something genuinely perverse — a satire that doesn't pretend to have answers, just lets the horror of collective delusion sit there for 12 hours at a time. Everyone else was making cautionary tales; she made a comedy about the exact moment consensus hallucination breaks.
The formal restraint is what makes this work: Fargeat's control of mise-en-scène and editing rhythm mirrors the chip's own rigid architecture, creating a feedback loop between form and content that positions the film within a lineage of Bresson and early Haneke. The 12-hour cycle becomes both thematic and structural discipline.
The masterstroke is the decision to show both realities *simultaneously* — split-screen or layered perspective — so we never get comfortable in either one; that single technical choice transforms what could've been a lecture into something genuinely disorienting and alive.