To Err
2023 · 22m · USA
Directed by Derek Romrell
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, mythic
Two hundred and thirty-seven years after humanity's extinction, a solitary android grows nostalgic for a past it can never experience, becoming fascinated with the memories and longings of the deceased.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Most people see post-apocalyptic android as tired sci-fi shorthand, but Romrell's move to graft Gnostic theology onto it—making nostalgia itself a kind of heresy—is genuinely perverse in the best way; the film knows exactly what consensus it's subverting.
To Err situates itself deliberately in a lineage of philosophical sci-fi (Tarkovsky's patience, the meditative rigor of recent essay-films) while honoring the apocryphal texts it quotes; the formal restraint here—the refusal to explain the android's longing—is the mark of a director thinking in images and silence, not exposition.
The decision to let the android's voice stay flat and liturgical while the camera dwells on degraded human artifacts creates an unbearable tenderness on almost no budget; that tonal choice—refusing sentiment while drowning in it—is what transforms a premise into something that actually breaks you.
Reviews
A love letter to religious, 'think-y' sci-fi films like THX-1138 and Blade Runner.
Touching, delicate and impeccably crafted — a charming experience and admirable work.
Festivals
- FilmQuest 2023
- Utah International Film Festival 2024