Obselidia - A Strange But Touching Little Movie

Like it's name, Obselidia is a strange and at times preachy little movie. The Al Gore style environmental message is heavy handed and trite at times. However, the cinematography is great in an old school way, the characters are engaging and the road trip coming of age plot is well executed.

Most of the movie is set in Death Valley, California. It helps, I suppose, that I love the desert. But, putting that aside, the California desert is a perfect stage for deep introspection and subtle reawakening, the stark emptiness of the surroundings focusing the spotlight of consciousness on the human actors swallowed up by it. Some of my own best moments of introspection were in the desert, pushing a diesel rig through the solitude of the soft desert night.

The female lead, Gaynor Howe, steals the show. She is bright, fun loving and adventuresome. A perfect foil

for the introverted, pessimistic, scholarly geek she accompanies to the desert.

If you put aside the obligatory radical left message that is necessary for inclusion in art films these days, you are left with a strong, sweet and mostly truthful message. Life is temporary. (True) The world as we know it  is ending and there is nothing we can do about it. (True) But, we are given days and hours and there are things, people and relationships to be enjoyed while we are here.(True) Consequently, we have nobody to blame but ourselves if we let the futility of earth's future spoil the joy of the present. (Absolutely true) 

Obselidia won the Excellence In Cinematography award and the Alfred P. Sloan prize for feature films dealing with technology at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. It is available on DVD from Netflix and for streaming online on Hulu Plus.