Review: Room237

Review: Room237

26 September, 2012
by: Naima Khan

Naima Khan reviews Rod Ascher's documentary about The Shining, sure to become a cult film in its own right.

The Shining is really a succession of inferences about the history of genocide and white guilt!? That's interesting. Oh no wait, you've taken your inferences way too far and now you're just laughable. Excuse my unsophisticated opening sentences but they do pretty much sum up the pattern of discussion in Room 237, a meandering documentary by Rob Ascher in the 'Cult' category of this year's London Film Festival.

It discusses at length, and occasionally depth, the symbolism and subliminal thinking behind Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film, The Shining. Ascher's documentary takes its cues from the writings and musings of film historian Geoffrey Cocks, journalist Bill Blakemore, author/artist/Kubrick enthusiast Juli Kearns and fellow Shining obsessives John Fell Ryan and thematic scholar (and sometimes referred to as a conspiracy hunter) Jay Weidner. It begins with quite a punch to the gut as Blakemore explains that the props and imagery within the film allude to European mass murder of Native Americans asserting quite loudly that we've all missed something here and ought to take a second look.

It speaks to film reviewers especially, who are always looking for metaphor and meaning beyond what we are at first presented with. So when Cocks expounds Blakemore's theories even more and links Kubrick's composition not only to the so-called discovery of America but also to the Holocaust, things get really interesting. Especially because Ascher's own clever visuals, which show Tom Cruise strutting his stuff among other clips, demonstrate the ways Kubrick's chosen themes could well include Space Odyssey 2001 and Eyes Wide Shut. In fact, the format of this documentary is the most striking thing about it. We're presented with an intelligent argument about Kubrick's occupation with the family and the idea of survival in a wider discussion that critics at the time of the film's release seem to have missed.

But when Ascher welcomes in the enthusiasts, who frankly seem to have way too much time on their hands, this thematic conversation takes a turn for the erratic. Kearns and Ryan are taken with the layout and the details of Overlook Hotel. What Kearns and Ryan have to say about Kubrick's ability to trick an audience or make us question things is impressive and funny particularly when the director's sense of humour is pointed out. But they really have examined every trivial detail of this film taking on the utterly futile as well as the intended. Their contributions make a great case for – to paraphrase one of the speakers themselves - the audience's acceptance and ignorance of visual information. We aren't used to questioning what we see, but Kubrick, who Weidner tells us had an IQ of 200 – insists we question everything.

But it's Weidner in particular, who makes some of the most ludicrous lurches about what The Shining could mean. At one point he insists the footage of the moon landing we're all so familiar with, was directed by Kubrick well before 1969 and The Shining, he says, is about Kubrick's frustration at having staged such a fallacy for the consumption of the masses. After that it just gets ridiculous. What till you hear his explanation of what Room No. 237 means (It means 'Moon Room' apparently).

So while there are many thought-provoking points about Kubrick's use of props, positioning and stylistic editing to chew on, Ascher makes us question his own structural decisions. Why put all these ideas at the same level? Why include so much fluff especially when it's not consistently funny? Regardless, all this exposition does make one point really well: when it comes to art, the creator's intent is only ever a single part of the much wider discussion that should follow.

Room 237 is due to be released in UK cinemas on 21st October 2012.

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Naima Khan