For the next nine days, anyone with an Oculus Go or Oculus Quest can access a 15-film lineup of immersive 3D films from around the globe, free of charge, curated and presented by the Tribeca Film Festival. Cinema360 will run from April 17 to 26. As VR headsets like the wonderfully accessible Oculus Quest continue to proliferate out into the mass market, and 360-degree videos begin reaching wider and wider audiences, more creative types are being drawn to the technology. The ability to place a viewer in such an immersive space can be used to create breathtakingly expansive environments and unnervingly intimate situations alike.
Mind you, the intersection between cinema and VR has not always been a smooth one. As Rich Haridy pointed out in his 2016 piece How VR is rewriting the rules of storytelling, there’s a fundamentally different relationship between a viewer and a film when the viewer can choose to look wherever they want. A director can make suggestions in all sorts of ways – audio cues, lighting, the gaze of other characters – but if the viewer doesn’t want to follow it, they’ll get a different experience than the director planned. From what we’ve seen of the Cinema360 lineup, this challenge is addressed in a number of different ways. Some of the films are totally watchable just from your comfy seat on the sofa, because they place the action front and center, offering you the opportunity to look around but not requiring it. Others you’ll need to be standing up or on a swivel chair, because they force you to look in all directions to follow the characters’ movements.
Some place you, the viewer, as an uninvolved spectator looking on as the action happens, others invite you into imaginary worlds where people speak directly to you and the whole show is laid out for your personal entertainment. Others drop the idea of a traditional visual narrative altogether, and simply move you through a series of artistic and creative spaces, creating a feeling more than a story. None of the short films go for more than about 15 minutes; they’re organized into four short programs but you can pick and choose between the 15 and watch what you like. Of the half dozen we’ve watched, the standout by far was 1st Step, a documentary-style retelling of the Apollo moon missions that sends you into space for a moonwalk using NASA archival footage and photos. Space travel is a VR staple, and for good reason. I challenge anyone not to be overcome with emotion looking at the Earth’s magnificence from afar.
Another memorable, if not as polished, experience is Forgotten Kiss, a VR retelling of a Russian fairytale, narrated to you by a series of ballerina-like figures as you float through a dreamscape of translucent mythological figures, statues and geometric worlds. VR can be a hell of a drug.