While IFFR’s 2022 digital edition is a smart move for worldwide access, as the pandemic comes off another variant and case spike, the change is undoubtedly disappointing to several filmmakers looking to exhibit their finished projects. One of the films that may have suffered most without the cinema experience – or at least the proper at-home technology – is Edgar Pêra’s KINORAMA – BEYOND THE WALLS OF THE REAL, an 80-minute 3D visual experience that explores the power of stereoscopic visuals to connect individuals.

Watching the film remotely, on a 2D video file, the stunning visuals on which Pêra worked for over a decade as part of a PhD dissertation are lost. It is clear how the pictures layer and where the immersive dives and reaches would be and using digital “frames” such as smartphones to combine interviews and conversations is a playful touch. But without the all-encompassing, state-of-the-art picture that one would find in a properly equipped cinema, the cracks in this grand investigation show. Increasing far-fetched reaches render the thesis hollow.

“But without the all-encompassing, state-of-the-art picture that one would find in a properly equipped cinema, the cracks in this grand investigation show. Increasingly far-fetched reaches render the thesis hollow.”

H.P. Lovecraft’s work looms large in the opening minutes, as Pêra and his colleagues discuss bringing the iconic writer’s monsters and cosmic horrors to the screen in ways that make them as believably unsettling as they are on the page. There is an innate fright in a being or object coming directly and alarmingly at a viewer, and 3D animation can use these scares to horror cinema’s advantage. But as the broader, more universal themes of Lovecraft are pulled to the fore, the self-reflexive piece begins to lose itself in theorising and grand unsupportable claims.

The last half of the film is more frustrating than dazzling. When the film turns to discussing the “shamanistic” qualities of cinema and storytelling on film, such a claim is impossible to substantiate regardless of the 2D and 3D cinematic medium, and the terminology employed smacks of cultural appropriation. When footage (perhaps stock, perhaps actors filmed for the project, certainly not historical) appears of unspecified tribesmen reaching out to the audience, the bad taste is all-pervasive, and goodwill crumbles.

KINORAMA – BEYOND THE WALLS OF THE REAL will find an audience as an immersive feature, hopefully in a live presentation. Pêra’s unending work and ambition are admirable, even if guided to claims he cannot support. But the technology on which a film is based has no effect on its ability to transport audiences: storytelling craft alone can do that. And not every film or story needs to be transportive or incite personal revelations; some can just be fun. While Lovecraft’s sci-fi is held up as achieving the former, the other cultural touchstone of KINORAMA is JACKASS 3D – almost certainly the latter, and better for it.