Review by Fernando Figueroa

Here is a taste  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pGqDjF4wPw

A genuinely postmodern cinematic artefact, produced thanks to the logic of the Leistungsgesellschaft observed by Byung-Chul Han in his The Burnout Society. Its chaotic digital/virtual thread manages to entertain in a mind-blowing way through its hybrid formal structure, fusing (a) reality shows with (b) gamer culture, and both with the harshness of (c) Shakespearean theatre, which, in itself, implied a meta-reality at the time (for example, the events of Hamlet take place in the Middle Ages, but in his mind, the setting was Kronborg Castle in Helsingør in the splendour of the 16th century). After all, this brilliant filmic mixture had to come from actors because they are used to changing masks (Greek prosopon and Latin persona, meaning ‘personality’); is it a coincidence, then, that Mark doubts whether he has a real job when he stages a virtual Hamlet because of the pandemic? ‘Dipo has a real job,’ he laments in the scene at the Los Santos subway station, which is not real but alludes to the original Los Angeles, CA. The actor, in a semi-documentary style, experiences the pressure to “do something productive” even in his leisure time, typical of the logic of the neoliberal Leistungsgesellschaft.

The alienation is undeniable. Sam and Mark, as Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han would say, assume they are free, but they have long since imposed on themselves a routine that Thom Yorke exposed in Fitter Happier with the voice of the SimpleText app created by Macintosh in the immortal O.K. Computer. 

To be ‘more productive’, Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen dissolved the boundaries between the avatar and the blood that coagulates and boils and is challenged by Pinny. Note that in the context of (b) gamer culture, the ultimate meaning of the game GTA is to shoot or kill or set fire to things, that is, what matters is absurd fun and of lesser importance, or none at all, is real coherence, or moral laws or norms, the economy, etc. Whereas in the Bard’s Hamlet it is the other way around. The reality is the drama of a guy who conspired with his own mother and murdered his father; should action be taken against them? Or should we accept the stoic necessity that these events are irrevocably determined by fate, luck or chance (To be or not to be). ‘The story’ about the history of the Prince of Denmark achieves an interesting originality because the open online game allows real-time audience participation. Some were offensive and violent, displaying firearms, while others started and did not continue, such as ‘Dipo,’ who abandoned the game by announcing his retirement at the Subway station, and a few others. Others were participatory, such as the user dressed as an alien, ‘ParTebMosMir,’ even though he didn’t even know more than two quotes or complete soliloquies from Hamlet. Sam’s wife, Pinny Grylls, took shots of the skyscrapers and other things for the creative background. Can an avatar cry? Well, the characters were certainly lacking in human expression, but one of the players cried at Ophelia’s death.