Brit Marling is an indie darling who, after having cut her teeth on the chin-stroking Another Earth and Sound Of My Voice, has always chosen intriguing roles that make you question yourself and was unafraid to ask the big question. When I heard that she had written and starred in The OA on Netflix, I was excited but then sadly learned that it had been culled after two seasons. I wasn't sure if I should invest in a show that didn't have closure but, after continuous rave reviews from publications and pop culture people I respected I thought I'd take the plunge. Boy is this series a wild ride.
The OA concerns the return of kidnapped teen Prairie Johnson, who returns home after 7 years away. During that time a miracle has occured and the once blond girl can now see. She adapts to life in the outside world with the media scrutinising this miraculous turn of events but she has a mission to save the others who were trapped with her at the hands of a crazy man. By forging friendships with 4 other people, she narrates her life story which features near death experiences, a mad scientist and multiverses. The question throughout it all is: is this all true or is she an unreliable narrator or mythomaniac?
The first series has a great ensemble cast that are a bunch of misfits, even the Principle says that as a social anthropologist he doesn't get the dynamic but that's what makes this series to interesting. Everyone has their own issues they are dealing with: the stoner who is struggling to look after his family after their mother passes and dad is nowhere to be seen, the Valedictorian with a substance abusing mother, the lonely middle-aged teacher who lost her addict of a brother and the rebellious bad boy. The story is intriguing and keeps you guessing throughout and whether Marling's OA (Original Angel) is a figure of good or a delusional false prophet is open to interpretation right up to the end.
The second series changes tack and starts off as a police procedural with a Vietnamese girl going missing in San Francisco. As a P. D. investigates the case he comes across a videogame where he must solve riddles using augmented reality. It's nearly 30 minutes before we see OA but she's her alternate world Russian version, the one who wasn't adopted and cared for by the parents in the first series. It throws the whole series on its head and you anticipate the moment she reconnects with her group of misfits from season one.
As a fan of Twin Peaks, The Prisoner, Evangelion, Haibane Renmei and many other cult television shows as well as movies like Pi, The Fountain, Mr Nobody, Donnie Darko, Three Colours Red, The Double Life of Veronique, Memento, The 12 Monkeys and The Second Coming and books like House of Leaves, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle and The Raw Shark Texts, I can say that this series was most definitely up my street. It mixes cool sci-fi elements with wobbly wobbly timey wimey stuff with a slight dash of interpretive dance.
There are some great actors in here and the ones I recognised from other work include the amazing Riz Ahmed, Zendaya, Jason Isaacs and, my favourite actress, Irene Jacobs. They really give the series a sense of prestige and present an acting masterclass. Jacobs is an extremely shrewd get as in her role as Veronique in Kieslowski's masterpiece, where she plays a double role as characters who are connected without knowing how and why, seems to fit in with her character of Elodie who states she has travelled to different dimensions where she played actresses who had roles that considered the human connection. Very meta indeed and I doff my cap to Marling and Batmanglij
The show covers a lot of ground including ethics in science, madness, the nature of reality, near death experiences, Afrofuturism, anime style tentacle stuff, Lovecraftian eldritch elder gods, and so much more. The fact that it remains pretty cohesive and compelling way is a testament to the creators and writers, Marling and Batmanglij. Sure, we may never get to know what was intended in the overarching narrative as some of these threads will likely never be resolved but that's okay as what we have is a worthwhile transcendent journey worth taking. The highlight for me me was season 2 episode 5, The Medium and the Engineer which turns the episode into a mystery box as OA and Karim try to figure out the truth about a creepy gothic style puzzle mansion. It had elements of gothic horror, Control and PT-style creepy corridors and mystery puzzles and House of Leaves non-Euclidian geometry.
For me, the show has elements of ecstatic truth. Werner Herzog equates ecstatic truth very much to the sublime which allows us to experience moments of enlightenment through deference of truth to truthiness... it just feels right even though we know it's not. It not lying but rather the feeling gets to the core of the message. I find this with David Lynch and his ouvre; the stories he has to tell don't always have to make sense but he gets to the spirit of good and evil, right and wrong, light and dark.
I'm aware that this series will definitely not be for everyone but I personally like the bold vision it has and the conviction of telling a story in such a novel way. I am gutted that the show ended on such a cliff hanger and broke the 4th wall but man was it a trip!
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LINK- Secret History of Twin Peaks: Book Review
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LINK- The Offworld Collection- Book Review