Strawberry Mansion

 There's a quote in Waking Life where a guy basically goes "You know when people tell you that they're going to tell you about a dream they had, you're in for a boring fifteen minutes". I'm paraphrasing heavily here, but it's stayed with me for the couple of decades I've last seen it - It's proven true over and over again. Dreams are personal; You lived through it, it was real for you. Others, not so much.

 That hasn't stopped people from trying to portray dreams in their stories and in their movies. They range from Inception's "Why did they bother making this happen in dreams if it was going to be so realistic?" to Nightmare On Elm Street's horror with extra craziness to Waking Life's surreal attempt to portray a drifting conscience. That's not even going into Surrealism proper or the use of dream logic in other genres.

 Strawberry Mansion opts for the surrealism, but it's an overtly twee, suffocatingly precious take. Not saying it doesn't work, but it's the sort of dream that would be portrayed in an oversized picture book with rococo illustrations and very curly writing. Cute but cloying.

 Set in a of those retro-futuristic futures that mashes up the fifties with a tiny bit of future-tech, the main thing as far as the movie is concerned is that everyone can record and play back their dreams. Also, the government has found a way to audit and tax people's dreams, because... that is a perfectly sane and logical thing that would totally happen. It's a funny idea, well executed (we actually see a little of how it works).

 The story follows Preble (co-director Kentucker Audley) - a tax auditor who sports a trilby and a bad moustache - as he is sent to interview an older woman who is suspected of tax evasion.

 And that is correct; The woman, Arabella (played by Penny Fuller, Bella from here on out) never bothered to update her dream-recording hardware, so she has several years of recordings on her top-loader VHS (more than two thousand tapes, she says). She welcomes Preble, and once the extent of his task becomes clear, she gives him room and board. Bella's a little batty, but a very gracious host.  

 Preble settles in and starts going over the tapes; And as he starts auditing the tapes, he starts falling in love with Bella's younger dream persona (Grace Glowicki).

 Meanwhile, in real life, the waking Arabella shows him that it isn't just the government that is getting into people's dreams. She opens Preble's eyes to a... well, a shockingly obvious conspiracy, but at least it gives the film some not-too-alarming stakes. Time folds in on itself, dreams intrude into reality, and a few other very gentle mindfucks are deployed. If it works, it works, if it doesn't make sense, well, what do you expect? It's purposefully silly, it's dreamlike, etcetera etcetera. Seems like a copout, but the movie is charming enough to pull it off. Also, criticizing this movie too much would feel like kicking kittens.

 It definitely embraces whimsicality wholeheartedly. A little too much for me - but its daft, home-made special effects (which mix stop motion, bad green screen compositing and giant papier-mâché masks) are pretty endearing. Also, the story takes so many leaps it kept me engaged if only to see where it would go next; The way things keep looping back to reality might not really cohere, but they keep things interesting.

 The love story at its center is feather-light - young Bella is too much of a passive, cutesy figure, and not a whole lot else - but it's sweet... as is the movie as a whole. The acting is uneven but enthusiastic, with Audley doing a pretty good job of anchoring things. He co-wrote, co-directed, and co-edited the film along with Albert Birney. The cinematography (Tyler Davis) is digital but with a very grainy filter and saturated colours. While it's not always distinctive, it does manage a some pretty cool images every now and then. Dan Deacon rounds things up with an excellent, synth-driven soundtrack.

 For all its annoyances, Strawberry Mansion is distinctive, and it leaves behind a good impression (for context, I was one of those people that kind of hated Swiss Army Man). It's extremely mannered but its earnestness feels genuine, and its goofy twists never feel manipulative or contrived.

  Plus, it really helps that it is can be very, very funny when it wants to.