Protanopia(2024) Written Review

Protanopia (2024) Written Review

Cast Timothy J Cox, Anthony Carrey, John Heerlein

Writer and Director: Matthew Mahler

** out of Five Stars

Protanopia is a form of color blindness where the viewer can’t distinguish between red or green colors

After the disappearance of his sister.  Luke (Anthony Carrey) begins having these strange dreams about a house.  That house’s owner Alan(Timothy J Cox) is also having odd dreams involving his father who recently passed away.   What do these two men have in common with each other? Are they connected solely through their dreams or is there something more.

It’s clear that director Matthew Mahler is heavily influenced by David Lynch and I respect that about this feature.  It’s a movie that is steep in dream logic but what sets this apart from other movies like Mulholland Dr, or Lost Highway is a narrative structure with a central plot.  While those movies do feature bizarre visuals with hightened sound and colors.  There is also a slow gradual shift from reality to dream that is not present here. This movie just goes from one extreme to another.  The look of the dream moments are very creative especially for an independent film, but for me.  It’s weirdness just for the sake of being weird.

The cast all do a great job with the material.  Timothy J Cox is surprisingly quite menacing and even vulnerable in this role.  Anthony Carrey’s performance helps guide us through this abstract and bizarre tapestry of a film.  One of my favorite characters and one I wish was used more often was the role of the detective played by John Heerlein. He would have been a great lead protagonist to help introduce us to these other characters.

Protanopia has a unique visual style that has a lot of creative elements in many scenes.  It’s an abstract film but I’m not seeing anything that makes me want to engage in the story or it’s characters.   For a music video or a short film, this would be a very good calling card to show director Matthew Mahler’s techniques but for a feature length film.  It’s a bit of an overkill in my opinion.