Blackmail

Writer/director Alexander Roman focuses a great deal of attention on sound design. Like many ASMR recordings, the idea is to take everyday sounds and enhance their “texture” through sensitive microphones. Blackmail manipulates sound and creates auditory texture by elevating the ambient sounds of its locations, such as passing cars outside the perfume store, a walk through a mansion, or the spray of the perfume bottle. Roman also curates a specific music score for each scene. All dialogue is spoken in low, measured tones. The point is to bring you to a specific state of relaxation and keep you in that state to the end of the film.

Though the focus of this review is placed on sound, Roman makes excellent use of stock video to give the appearance that the blackmail ring is a global operation taking place in Paris, Geneva, and New Orleans. In addition, the color palette is spot on, and every single visual stock or original creates one cohesive piece of art.

“…worth watching and listening to with headphones on and the volume up…a different way of telling cinematic stories….”

Roman’s experimentation with ASMR reminds me of the old radio plays I’d borrow from the library. I’d point to the Vault episode of the Jack Benny Show, where the use of sound from its foley artists plays a pivotal role in creating a world in our mind. Increasing the sound levels on the effects adds that texture, and for this experiment to work, the visuals should enhance the sound. I wish Blackmail had pushed those limits further in sound design to better induce the “texture” and “feelings” of sound.

One might claim that using ASMR in thrillers seems antithetical and that combining the two elements lessens the effectiveness of both. Because there are no car chases or gunfire, the thrills come from the situations — the realizations that characters have been conned. For these grifts to work, tension and anxiety have to be raised, which sort of violates the rules of ASMR. Acting is also limited to a very thin tonal bandwidth, so expressions of happiness, sadness, and rage are all muted. Thus, the actors sometimes feel scripted or stilted because their performances have to be highly controlled.

Though my last few points are criticisms, I think Blackmail is worth watching and listening to with headphones on and the volume up, mainly to experience a different way of telling cinematic stories. It’s definitely a fun experience to take in. Using ASMR is undoubtedly much cheaper for indie filmmakers to pull off versus the use of CGI and 3D. Roman shows that using ASMR as part of the moviegoing experience can work. However, I feel that this technology and its effects on our senses need to be pushed further and clearly stand out.