You Are Here

Brainy, inventive and playful, You Are Here is the fascinating debut feature from accomplished video artist Daniel Cockburn. Calling to mind the cerebral surrealism of Charlie Kaufman, the cool absurdism of Samuel Beckett and the playfulness of Dr. Seuss, Cockburn has created his own unique and compelling style.

You Are Here melds a series of intriguing and smartly crafted narratives that arise from a string of bizarre experiments. Office workers at a mysterious call centre inexplicably track the movements of several urbanites. An archivist (played by the late, great Tracy Wright, who also appears in Trigger) opens a puzzling inquiry into her self-created library of found documents. A scientist constructs a working-model scenario for “what to do if they shove Chinese writing under the door.” Meanwhile, it’s Alan’s birthday; he’s lost his computer password and is looking for an explanation for a door that shouldn’t be there.

As Cockburn establishes a contrapuntal rhythm for the various narrative fragments, protagonists shift, ideas change course and missions move in and out of focus. As if to highlight its own challenges to navigation, every now and then the film’s image track is punctuated by red, circular objects, like the “you are here” symbol on maps.

Cockburn’s characters seem to be trapped in thought experiments of their own making ,
which is a large part of the fun here. With keen insight, humour, and performances from some of Toronto’s finest actors, You Are Here offers a captivating commentary on our modern-day existence, indicting technology and its unyielding influence. While Cockburn is already celebrated for his often dazzling short videos, You Are Here establishes his skill and intellect on a larger canvas. This whip-smart brain-teaser signals the arrival of an exciting new talent in Canadian feature filmmaking.

Agata Smoluch Del Sorbo