Directors: Lars Hogendoorn & Yannick van den Ende
Writer: Lars Hogendoorn
Running time: 4mins
It is safe to say that Indy Film Library has never received a film like Rubik’s Cube before. In some ways, I hope it stays that way. This may be the most harrowing four-minute watch I have encountered in my time as a critic. But given the subject matter, that is entirely appropriate. This is a story we have heard too many times, but have done far too little to prevent its recurrence.
Netherlands-based animator Yannick van den Ende, and composer Largs Hogendoorn have collaborated here to paint a cautionary portrait of a society that has all but abandoned its most vulnerable. In the US, guns remain the leading cause of death in children: that includes suicides, ‘accidents’, and domestic violence, but the focus of Rubik’s Cube is the mode that so regularly claims top priority in the news cycle; school shootings.
Reminiscent of Tommy and The Wall, Hogendoorn’s patient lyrics set out a scene of helpless innocence, as a child – overwhelmed by the hectic daily grind of school – seeks refuge in an alcove under the stairs, to calm his mind with a Rubik’s Cube. At last, finding a situation in which is fully in control, where he can order his environment and make sense of what is in front of him, he begins to calm – while the echoing chorus of Hogendoorn’s song encourages him to “turn the cube”.
Just as the narrator finds himself regain his footing, his world turns upside down. A student enters the school with a rifle – glancing his way, before passing by up the stairs, to attack the rest of the class. As the nightmare unfolds, the narrator finds he can no longer take solace in the tumbling colours – the “orange, green; black and white; red and blue” signifying the chaotic blur of limbs and bullets unfolding in the room above, before the device begins to emit a sticky, dark red liquid.
There are some things which it would obviously be in the worst possible taste to show here – so I cannot criticise the film’s lack of literal representation of the events as they unfold. I would note that perhaps there was room for a little more experimentation with the iconography we are left to process things through (scrawled text thrown onto the screen momentarily such as “HELP” and “BANG” is perhaps a little on the nose – and I am sure there must be room for something more abstract, in the vein of animations which have accompanied Pink Floyd songs, for example). However, the darkness – an amorphous shadow that seeps out of the closed classroom, and spills down the stairs to pursue our narrator – is everything that it needs to be. It speaks of the horrors of the day itself, but also the stain it leaves on the school’s history, the psyche of the survivors, and the soul of the political class that has washed its hands of this crisis (if they aren’t actively profiting from it).
The final images find the boy running through the dystopian imagery of the 24-hour news cycle: with instant and extensive press coverage by commercial news organisations who clearly see school shootings as little more than an opportunity to sell ad-space; and shrugging engagement with Donald Trump as the first sitting president to address the NRA. The imagery fades as the Rubik’s Cube begins to bleed – a symbol of innocence lost, but also perhaps a sign of the societal fragmentation which created the conditions for this nightmare to unfold.
Corporate avarice is obviously at the heart of this issue thanks to the extremely lucrative gun-lobby’s stranglehold on America’s politicians. But beyond that, we are also witnessing what an utterly hopeless, inhuman education system does to young minds; where the whole system is designed to emotionally and intellectually stunt children, to shape them into the workforce that capital demands at any cost. In that bitter and brutal world, looking for a way to reclaim some semblance of control on your life and mind takes many forms – and perhaps the supposed mercy shown by the killer to the boy with the Rubik’s Cube speaks to a recognition of the same struggles; just without the luck of finding a passive way to process them.
The directors note in their summary of the film, that “from a Dutch perspective – where guns are forbidden to the public – this is simply unfathomable.” I fear that reading is too optimistic a reading of the situation. As wedded as Europe remains to Americanised economics – the Netherlands has been ‘liberalising’ its health system with regulated private insurance coverage for 20 years, inspired by the apparent dynamism of the US’ infamously shoddy equivalent. While there might not be AR-15s in every house this time next year, it’s not impossible that another rightward lurch (in a country where elections have become increasingly erratic) could see that love of the American way slowly emulated in other areas of life.
Even beyond that, though, life for young people here – as in the UK, as across the rest of Europe – is also becoming harder. While home life is increasingly underwritten by poverty, threats to household security, and a hostile state; at school, they face more rigidly defined by career paths, with less security, time for play, development or imagination. Those are ingredients for a combustible scenario, with or without guns. But hopefully, films can still draw that commonality from films like Rubik’s Cube, and resolve to do something about it.
