Sean Parker
About halfway through director Kourtney Roy’s Kryptic, a subtle pull of memory began to nag at me from my subconscious cinema. You know, that place in a cinephile’s brain where movies we love are stored, where scenes are resurrected and played back as if appearing on a screen before us. Something about the film strongly resonated with Lost Highway vibes. I blew off the notion, but the pieces continued fitting at every turn, with the film’s finale being a bow-out reveal. By that summation, any reader who has seen Lost Highway will tell you that Kryptic isn’t going to play according to typical rules of story mechanics. But connect the same themes in David Lynch’s identity-based noir, and you start decoding where Roy’s film takes you.
Kryptic begins with Kay Hall optimistically encouraging herself to make friends while going on a hike in the Canadian Pacific Forest. The group’s guide reminds them that many people go missing in the woods and stay close. Momentarily, Kay finds herself off the trail and encounters a strange creature. When she returns to the group, more than the five minutes she thought she was gone for has seemingly passed. More importantly, Kay’s forgotten everything about who she is. Relying on her driver’s license, Kay returns to her home and deciphers the mysteries of her identity until someone tries to break in, sending her scurrying into her car and back to the area where she forgot everything.
Having heard about a missing cryptozoologist (aka monster hunter) during the hike, Kay assumes her identity in an attempt to figure out what she saw in the woods. The strange part is that Kay is the exact doppelganger of the woman she’s pretending to be, leading the audience to question whether Kay may actually be the missing woman in question. The identity swap seems good for making friends during her investigation, at least, as a host of quirky characters tend to make momentary entrances before vanishing from the story entirely, sometimes as if they were never really there at all.
Many of the women Kay meets throughout Kryptic have two things in common: encounters with their region’s Bigfoot, a creature called a Suka (soo-kah), and the fact that no one believes them. Roy entangles a world-class allegory with this idea, subtly injecting “Me Too” subtext into those telling their stories of supernatural encounters. Having had a monster encounter herself, she becomes welcomed and trusted in these women’s worlds, drinking, dancing, and holding conversations. Yet, Kay seems to be more aware. As one of the ladies with a similar gleam in her eyes considers it, they’re special with an ability to see the real monsters lurking outside of the forest.
I also want to highlight the superb acting by the personality-hopping Chloe Pirrie. Her task of mystifying the audience and capturing their interests on this journey is well-done and only furthered by the ensemble of terrific female actors cast across from her. Pam Kearns, Jennifer Copping, Ali Rusu-Tahir, and Sarah Hayward are among some of the film’s brightest performances.
Kay’s visions of gooey, claustrophobic limbs and vines seem to only happen under the weight of intense pressures, predominantly occurring when men are acting overly aggressive. During these hypnogogic hallucinations, Kay finds herself sleepwalking, blacking out, and losing time with inexplicable occurrences transpiring after she wakes up.
There’s this moment from Lost Highway when Patricia Arquette and Balthazar Getty are making love on the beach. Getty whispers, “I want you!” into Arquette’s ear. Arquette exclaims, “You’ll never have me!” then leaves him and enters the shack. That moment encompasses the entirety of what Lynch’s film is trying to convey: that abhorrent men see women as possessions. Something to own. Something to f*ck. Some non-autonomous thing. Kryptic’s Kay follows in Arquette’s footsteps, with a similar epiphany in a Blue Velvet-inspired neighborhood where the monsters have convened.
Writer Paul Bromley has infused an intricate metaphor into the screenplay, and Roy’s patience behind the camera allows the audience to absorb the nuance. However, as captivating a puzzle as Kryptic can be at times, it also brushes confusion. Some things sort themselves out, while at other times, reasoning feels intrinsic. So, not unlike a David Lynch film. People who love Lynch are really going to admire and appreciate Kryptic, while those who are unfamiliar may not grasp the more experimental aspects of his incorporated methodology, symbolism, and subtext. However, for a feature debut by both the writer and director, Kryptic is a fantastic achievement and hopefully the first full-length credit in two very promising careers. Kryptic is the kind of exciting, bold storytelling we need to bring back to cinema. It is a film that takes chances and ends on a note that stirs discussion. What more can you ask for, really?
Kryptic held its Quebec Premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival on July 22. For additional information, see the film’s page on the Fantasia website.
