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A "Room" with a Boo!

 

Picture yourself at a cocktail party:  drink in hand, you drift past a couple of conversations until you hear a group of fellow partygoers animatedly discussing their favorite films.  Talk turns to the work of director Stanley Kubrick, and a fellow in a bow tie launches into a lengthy analysis of the symbolism of carpet patterns in the hotel that serves as the setting for Kubrick's 1980 film, "The Shining".  Do you think, 'Ugh, where's the cheese tray??', or 'Wow, tell me more!'

Film fanatics who wouldn't dream of seeking out a casual snack when such exotic intellectual repast is being offered will love the documentary "Room 237", a unique production that corrals five commentators – a journalist, a historian, an artist, a musician, and a conspiracy theorist – and showcases their observations and interpretations of "The Shining".  To call the contributors who offer their viewpoints "fans" wouldn't begin to brush the surface of their commitment to the film; these folks are each Kubrick scholars in their own fashion, and they treat the director's 1980 foray into horror, via the Stephen King novel of the same name, as a text to be closely read. Their attempts to ferret out hidden themes and meanings touch on the Holocaust, westward expansion and the Native American genocide, mythology and minotaurs, subliminal messaging, architecture and visual space, and, inevitably, postmodernism. It's a wild kaleidoscope of ideas, and it's fascinating.

The lengths that these Kubrick fanatics go to in order to dissect and study the film is nearly as fascinating as the far-ranging interpretations they offer. Methods include creating maps of the film's hotel setting, diagraming stills from various scenes to illustrate parallels in composition and movement, and screening the film in two superimposed layers – one running forward, the other backward – to study structure and expose unseen depths of context and hidden commentary.  Some of the arguments are sophisticated and nuanced, touching on the film viewer's acceptance of visual information, postmodernism and author intent, and the purpose of dreams in affecting the architecture of the brain.  Others are fascinating but less credible:  Did Mr. Kubrick have a hand in creating footage to sell the public on the idea of the moon landing?  A solid case for the theory isn't really presented here, but it's fun to spend a couple of minutes investigating the "clues" and wonder if maybe, just maybe,  it could be true.

"Room 237" is composed primarily of "talking head" interviews and voiceovers, some of which run into stream of consciousness commentary that might be a touch tedious if the subject matter weren't so fascinating.  In order to add visual interest, the commentators' various points are illustrated with a staggering number of film clips. These come in large part from Mr. Kubrick's extensive and varied body of work, and seeing the short passages in relation to one another illustrates the filmmaker's restless talent and serves as a reminder of his aptitude as a storyteller and an artist.

"Room 237" is a smart movie, and watching it is going to make you think.  Before checking  it out you may as well add "The Shining" to your Netflix queue – that is, if you don't already own a copy – because you will certainly want to see the movie again, either to test your agreement with the theories presented, or to see if you can come up with some new ones of your own.  Just don't try to screen it forward and backward at the same time; that sort of thing is really best left to the experts.