Is the truth out there? Paraphrasing the X-Files tagline feels appropriate for the creeping paranoia of Australian director Matt Vesely’s intimate but epic debut feature Monolith, which may or may not relay the spine-tingling details of a decades-long alien invasion.
A deceptively simple set-up introduces us to fast-rising star Lily Sullivan (Evil Dead Rise) as an unnamed journalist who’s smarting from an imploded story that might have sunk her career. Hiding away in her parents’ architecturally austere pad cloistered by whispering gum trees – seriously, if you’re a genre character, do not stay in a joint like this – because her apartment address was doxed; she’s determined to get back on track by embracing the all-pervasive popularity of the podcast.
Written by Lucy Campbell, Monolith also evokes Orson Welles’ infamous radio play adaptation of H. G. Wells’ seminal sci-fi novel War of the Worlds. When it went to air, it terrorised thousands of listeners into believing that malevolent beings from outer space were laying siege to the Earth. You might check over your shoulder in the cinema when Sullivan’s reporter follows bizarre leads worldwide without ever leaving her makeshift studio. Pretty soon, her new podcast Beyond Believable has thousands of listeners clamouring.
A shadowy tip-off from an unknown email contact leads her to an odd interview with a woman, Floramae (Ling Cooper Tang, only heard on the phone), who grudgingly opens up about a very strange occurrence 20 years ago. Back then, she was a cleaner for a posh family who paid a scholarship for her daughter Paula (voiced by Ansuya Nathan).
Alas, everything went awry shortly after the mysterious appearance of a black brick Floramae says ruined her life. But what is this brick, and why can’t she expand on where it came from? Why does every subsequent interviewee concur that they have experienced disturbing visions and strange symbols that speak to their darkest secrets? The Stranger actor Terence Crawford’s shifty German art dealer also reveals that scans of the bricks suggest an alien language inscribed inside. At the same time, a British reporter (Brigid Zengeni) hints at an international cover-up. We all know how this stuff plays online.
Is it responsible for our podcaster to pick at these threads when there’s a risk she may be leading everyone involved into a trap? Of course, Monolith asks us viewers to consider the ethics of our own podcast obsessions in a vastly proliferating field that isn’t always held to the highest journalistic standards. Are we our own worst enemy? Sullivan’s reporter, it turns out, isn’t above the unethical practices that got her into this mess in the first place.
Making the most of the palatial but spookily claustrophobic single setting, leant an icy menace by cinematographer Michael Tessari, Vesely and Campbell take us on a spine-chilling ride that, even if it winds up in fairly familiar territory, is never less than gripping thanks to a bravura performance by Sullivan. Follow where she leads, and you might wind up shitting bricks.
Monolith is currently being screened as part of MIFF 2023 in cinemas in Melbourne and Echuca. For full information and dates and times, visit the MIFF website here.
