Saskia Naidoo

&quot;Formless&quot; is a word which is repeatedly used to describe not only the structure of Amit Desai&apos;s 2021 film Cross Eyed, but the performances, exchanges, and relations within it. We could see the film as a documentary about the maki...

Amit Desai

Cross Eyed

"Formless" is a word which is repeatedly used to describe not only the structure of Amit Desai's 2021 film Cross Eyed, but the performances, exchanges, and relations within it. We could see the film as a documentary about the making of a play, an expansive rehearsal for adulthood, or a tentacular mode of storytelling where every performance has a divergent strategy. In many ways, it feels like a love letter to the boundlessness of an age on the cusp, when self-awareness and world-weariness are bound up with intangible desires. At its core, the premise is simple. A few years ago, Desai wrote a coming-of-age play entitled The Highway. When Desai asked New York City teenager Jack Salmon to direct the play, Salmon enlisted a group of peer performers-a group already accustomed to working together in hybrid, "non-ambitious" ways- to star. You can sense that everyone's comfort with the camera stems from never believing it could be used as a tool for veracity. The expected template for rehearsal, behind-the-scenes footage, performance, and confessional interview do not flow seamlessly into each other. Instead they are as porous and temperamental as memory.

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Cross Eyed

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