The Cult Part of Cult-Classic

In the age of overconsumption and the death of physical media, we’ve lost the charm of being obsessed. The cult-like devotion to an art piece that strikes you deep in your spirit, a soul contact to an artist that can see your lived experience and lift it into the three dimensional. We love to call a movie a cult-classic after a mediocre theatre run and quirky letterboxed review, but we lack the true meaning of what the cult in cult classic stands for.

I knew a girl in middle school that was obsessed with surfboards. Every piece of art she drew in class had a looming longboard that seemed to overpower the otherwise mundane landscapes. When I asked her about it, she simply shrugged and said, “surfboards are cool,” and who am I to argue with that logic? The nonsensical obsession, void of consequence and completely based on the serotonin response.

What we’re forgetting is the casual obsessions of days past. When Extreme Home Makeover would’ve seen a transformers DVD in your family room and suddenly, you’re sleeping inside Optimus Prime every night. An obsession that doesn’t take over your identity, just your time, or at most your room. An obsession devoid of labels, an obsession for just you.

The obsessions of days past phased out by internet consumption, fandom culture, and 24/7 access to unhinged fan content. The death of cult-like casual fan attraction is most notably missed beginning in the early 2010’s, wherein Tumblr ushers in a new wave of parasocial fan behavior. Growing up in the height of delusion, I’ve put a genuine effort to spending time separating my love for a piece of media from the obsession it can bring me.

That’s all to say, I think I’ve watched the 2021 movie Annette directed by Leos Carax more than anyone in the world. Now, you’ll never see me changing my twitter account or starting a movement to bring it back to theatres for the masses to give it another go, but I genuinely think if you looked at the statistics of my mother’s Amazon Video account it would be in the top 0.001% of Annette watchers.

A movie, starring Marianne Cotillard, Adam Driver, and a puppet baby, stringing together an absurdist tale of parenthood, fame, ego, and power all underscored by The Sparks. Yes, it’s a musical (opera?), full of original works. Yes, it’s visceral, confusing, funny, awkward, and a fucking trip. The movie almost immediately drives you into Driver’s take on Bo Burnham comedy, a dry wit mixed with the most lovingly bizarre tight ten I’ve ever witnessed. From that point forward, my question remains, how is this real?

My first watch, in the back of an Alamo Drafthouse, the shadow of loose Texan covid restrictions, and an empty theatre except for me, my friend Elena, and a man wearing a pageboy hat (we were in for a treat); I had no idea what it would become. Except I hated it on my first watch, or so I thought. I fully could not grasp the rollercoaster that I had just ridden, all I knew is that I genuinely could not bring myself to stop thinking about it. My first taste of obsession in so long, and my poor friends (Elena) subjected to three-hour rants. It was a real enemies-to-lovers thing.

The story is heightened, absurd, ridiculous, theatrical, and its music is great, but their bodies tell so much of the story. I’ll never know if that was the intention, I doubt anyone on the team will ever give me the chance to sit down and talk, or if it was some byproduct of casting theatrically trained actors to tell the story. I can’t imagine how confusing the script is to read, when all the audience can rely on is the intense physical presence of Adam Driver holding his puppet daughter.

A movie with the combination of dialogue that sounds like it’s been put through google translate several times over, a 4K camera quality, and one thousand unexplored metaphors, it’s potentially the best movie I’ve ever seen. I’ve never thought about anything more. Its confusion has surpassed intrigue and burrowed itself into my veins attaching it to my soul forever. This limited covid release art house movie maybe didn’t shoot for mainstream success, but it landed in triple platinum in my heart.

And yet, now, in a time where a movie like this could have a cultural resurgence through Tik Tok film reviews, microtrends, or parasocial fan engagement I hesitate from talking about it. There’s perhaps a small beauty about being obsessive over movies that are less in the mainstream (it’s hard to call a movie that premiered with a nationwide release and a showing at Cannes a small project), a moral superiority to the Marvel or Disney release. A feeling that I actually am better than someone who prefers to watch Deadpool & Wolverine over Dìdi.

I think it comes down to this, moral superiority has phased out obsession. Obsession is no longer a singular activity, it’s a movement you share with a community in order to prove you are more than just your taste. The days of loving media openly is shelved for in preference of proving you know the most (or at least more than your peers) about something.

Even through my hazed madness of this movie, where I vaguely describe moments, I want someone to read this and go home and watch it. I want to talk to people about what they just watched, and I while I claim to have seen it the most times in the world, I don’t want people to think I hold authority on it. I want Annette to be a longboard in the background of my landscape, drawn in the hopes someone asks me about it so I can talk about it.

We spend so much time worrying about looking and sounding dumb that we forget the joy of actually sharing ideas with other people. So, the next time you see a movie or book or album or art piece you feel obsessed over I encourage you to love it stupidly, because it doesn’t matter how much you know about a thing as long as you enjoy it.

On a side note, if you’re wondering, Annette’s free on Amazon Video, and it’s a cult classic to me because I’ve been slowly converting people into my cult. I’m stupidly obsessed with this stupidly confusing movie that makes me feel stupid, and I don’t care who knows it.