BACKROOMS by Kane Parsons
Ramblings & interpretations by me; wordcount 1.2k
The Backrooms being a metaphor for trauma/memories was not what I expected but in retrospect it makes so much sense. It’s a never-ending maze of rooms and oddly nostalgic but not-quite-right places that your mind will desperately strain to remember properly but you just can’t because your perception will forever be imperfect.
Everyone in this movie was lonely. (Except for Kat and Bobby.) Not alone, though. Not alone, even in this endless, awfully empty office building. Never alone. Exactly this is the spirit of the backrooms, carrying the weight of being perceived while being unable to perceive anything except for oneself. Sounds like hell to me. In my opinion, they twisted the words around in the therapy sessions; it should be lonely, never alone. Clark has co-workers but no one to really be himself with. He only really trusts himself, which is probably why he fell for the charm of the backrooms so soon.
Mary carried her own trauma quite literally with her wherever she went. A stone on her heart (more or less), reaching into the past (because of the hand mark, get it?). She got rid of it only to bash the pirate’s head in with it, which was shortly before the last time we ever saw him. In the few seconds she stopped to look at him after that, she seemed relieved. Free, maybe. Realising she and Clark never were all that different, maybe. She wrote a whole book about issues she never acknowledged in herself, and somehow the notion of attacking Clark’s trauma twice in a day (once by cursing him out, once quite literally) freed her from that.
She was such a sucky therapist. Her entire point was repeating the same phrases over and over again — the movie made a point to stress that she and Clark had gone over the same moment in his life time after time after time. And nothing had changed. I know that therapy takes time and the effort to process traumatic events repeatedly but at that point, both of them should’ve known Mary can’t really help him make any progress. One interesting thing about her is that, though we never visited her home in the backrooms, it appeared several times, until it fully melted with its surroundings. Slowly becoming a part of them. Swallowing the memories.
This is all good and fun, but one thing I genuinely disliked. The door to the backrooms. It’s a really big plotpoint and it’s bugging me, because I expected some sort of smoother transition between the store and the backrooms — Clark getting something out of a warehouse maybe, and it just goes on and on unrealistically. The rooms get emptier and emptier, the shelves disappear, until he turns a corner and stands in an unfamiliar yellow light. Or maybe the red switches from the fuse box leading into a wall that, after comparing reality to the blueprints of the store, shouldn’t exist. Would’ve given the constant emphasis on „but I am an architect“ more weight.
Something like that would’ve felt more like the backrooms than this magical non-wall that he just happened to stumble through. That definitely threw me off, it seemed like such a convenient way to have it happen without regarding the plot. I can only guess that it was a conscious decision to avoid things like I came up with. It would make sense not to want a physical door or wall that had to be taken down, since that could be looked through without being inside. This way, there’s only inside and outside — no observation. Only black and white. You can’t see the backrooms, you have to experience them. Just as it is with emotions. You can’t ever describe them properly.
Now, I’m not a backrooms expert at all, I’ve never been deep in the lore, so I’m not going to try and interpret something I literally don’t know anything about. I was always there for the visuals, so I’m spinning this thing as I go. Don’t murder me for the inaccuracy. I know that A-sync is responsible for the backrooms to some extent. Considering they make MRI-machines, it is not a long shot to guess that it has something to do with our minds — scientists are constantly working on figuring out how to understand the mind on a physical or psychological level. Now, if the link between our mind and the backrooms really is that strong, it would be interesting as a sort of direct confrontation with one’s trauma. This is only a short thought experiment though, me trying to figure out what the point in understanding the backrooms is, in the first place.
What I find beautiful in this movie is how everyone who, even for a short time, enters the backrooms, leaves something behind — the most precious thing we have as humans, and yet the most inaccurate. Our memories will forever be twisted by emotions and misunderstandings. And marinating in these, as Clark basically did, as often has he revisited the backrooms, only heightens these. Quite literally, as we saw in the pirate. Clark’s mental issues, all the worst parts he sees in himself took on a life of their own, and every time he came back, they gained more control over him.
Mary’s trauma, her mother keeping the two of them locked in all day and night as a kid, is also mirrored by the backrooms. As in her childhood, there’s not a single moment she can see blue sky until the ending and even then, it is unclear whether it really is the sky or whether it is a plot to make her feel secure in an insecure environment. Especially eerie in this moment is the sound of seagulls. They’re seen throughout the movie, on the parking lot in front of the furniture store — but also in the backrooms. They clearly have either found their way in or there’s someone’s memory centered around seagulls that has taken a strong hold inside. We don’t know. Maybe I missed some obvious clues in the end because I’ve only seen the movie once so far, but to me it is fully unclear whether she’s gotten out or not.
Then, who’s the protagonist and who’s the antagonist? Both Mary and Clark play an important role in pushing the plot forward, as protagonist and antagonist usually do. But neither is neither. Mary’s awfully cheesy and unhelpful therapy methods (e.g. having Clark project Barbara’s image on her) are what pushed him over the brink; him giving his trauma too loud a voice, too much space, too much control, is what made it grow too big (quite literally) and consume him in the end (literal metaphors are awesome). Why it chased Mary so insistently was probably because at this point, he saw her as Barbara due to her therapy methods (hence why the scalp wig).
The technical aspect of the movie worked perfectly. The cinematography was so deliberate, ranging from wide-angle shots in theoretically unfitting places to purposely used zoom to create a scene that feels flat instead of immersive. Lights and colours were on spot, only highlighting the eeriness of everything. Kane Parsons truly knows his stuff, and he knows how to let us know.
Tl;dr — Steady symbolism and representation of the mind throughout. Foreshadowing, relying on your memory to keep up as well, which fits the theme on a meta level (I love). Didn’t like the discovery of the backrooms but I’m choosing to believe that it was a conscious choice instead of a clumsy, lazy way to go. The vibe was immaculate, as were the constant parallels between characters, past/present, accepting/insisting. The ending was spectacular, just unreliable enough to keep up the mood.
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