Any modern movie that's shot in moody, darkly expressive black and white is already after my own heart, and if it's a smoky noir liberally interwoven with elements of sci-fi, weird fantasy, mind-bending metaphysics, and melancholy romance, then it really stokes my desire to come up with lots of colorful adjectives to describe it.
Writer-director James Kerwin ("Star Trek Continues") has created just such a cinematic novelty piece in the languidly compelling YESTERDAY WAS A LIE (2009), now celebrating its ten-year anniversary with a digitally remastered Blu-ray release from Indiepix.
The film is beautiful from the moment we first see Hoyle (Kipleigh Brown), a young blonde woman dressed like a 40s private detective and making her way through a black and white cityscape of steamy alleyways, mystery men in trenchcoats, and bodies with hot lead slugs in their brains (one of them played by none other than Peter "Chewbacca" Mayhew himself).
She seems anachronistic, as though snatched up from the modern era and sent back in time to replace someone else. We soon realize, though, that her entire life is a series of anachronisms that she can't fathom, as though she were unstuck in time (like Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim), unable to find where she currently belongs within the storyline of her own life.
This is also reflected by the clashing elements of different eras which surround her, with characters right out of classic film noir looking up information on their laptops (with an antique typewriter two feet away) or using old-style rotary phones one minute and cell phones the next.
Changing from her trenchcoat and fedora into an evening dress, Hoyle hits the bar circuit and encounters a gorgeous torch singer (Chase Masterson, looking way sexier now than she did back on "Deep Space 9") who is known, fittingly enough, as "The Singer."
When not crooning slow jazz ballads for the customers--Masterson does her own vocals, and very well--she reveals herself to Hoyle to be a medium, a seer, a prognosticator. In other words, just the ideal person to help sort out the scattered jigsaw pieces of Hoyle's life from a spiritual perspective. But is the solution to her existential angst mystical or scientific?
It all hinges on an elusive guy named Dudas (John Newton) who seems to hold the key to everything if she could just find him, along with a mystery notebook that also promises to illuminate. What, we wonder, was/is her relationship to this guy? Meanwhile, the Singer does what she can to guide Hoyle through it all while remaining maddeningly enigmatic.
Definitely not one of those time-wasters one watches passively while mentally composing a grocery list, YESTERDAY WAS A LIE keeps the viewer on his or her figurative toes trying to sort out what's real and what's not during Hoyle's encounters with scientists espousing incredible theories on time and space as each plunge into the surreal has her struggling through what seems like a print of "Groundhog Day" cut up and spliced back together wrong.
I won't try to explain any more of the plot (which, admittedly, I still haven't completely deciphered) because much of the fun comes from wading through it all yourself. What matters most to me, in fact, is that Kerwin has created such a superbly atmospheric, richly artistic work of indy cinema that one can revel in like a sumptuous indulgence.
The Blu-ray from Indiepix is in HD 1080p 1.78:1 with English Dolby 5.1 sound (English SDH subtitles available). In addition to an audio commentary featuring Kipleigh Brown, Chase Masterson, and James Kerwin, there are several making-of featurettes and interviews, camera tests and outtakes, trailers, and a Wondercon panel with cast and crew. (Look for an Easter egg, too.)
YESTERDAY WAS A LIE is painstakingly crafted, seemingly with the same loving care that David Lynch lavished on "Eraserhead" and with much the same stunning visual impact and cerebral engagement. And although the knotty plot never quite untangles itself before the fadeout, we're left pleasantly pondering the mysteries of the universe while still buzzing on that beautiful black and white fever dream in which we've just been immersed.
Order it from Indiepix Films
Release date: November 12, 2019
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