Otto Bloom (Xavier Samuel) is a legitimate enigma. Beginning his tale in a mental institution, he experiences time in reverse, travelling backwards through the years and only remembering the future because for him, that's the past. He becomes famous first as a contemporary artist, then as the SO of rock star Suzi Noon (Rose Riley). Through a mockumentary format, several of the other key figures in his life retrospectively fill the blanks in and tell us about his awful demise: music promoter Bob Simkin (Terry Camilleri), psychiatrist Prof. Charles Reinier (John Gaden), journalist Miroslaw Kotok (Jacek Koman), and most notably Ada (Rachel Ward), a therapist at Otto's institution with whom he had an intense love affair.
I actually just saw this on TV last night, and it's surely one of the strangest movies I've ever seen; I'm still trying to get my head around it. However, some films aim for weirdness and come off as pretentious while others that do that manage to be thought-provoking and seductive. From Australia and 2016, The Death & Life of Otto Bloom takes the latter route. Writer-director Cris Jones, who sadly died suddenly last year aged just 37 (RIP), has hit upon a genuinely unique, if obviously implausible, predicament for his protagonist (and one that's puzzling for the viewer) and ambitiously attempts to juggle navigating it with sprinkling a trail of visual and symbolic breadcrumbs to help us do that ourselves. Plotting this story must've been a bitch, but that's how it proves so stimulating and as I watched its trajectory I nonetheless saw not one puzzle piece out of place. Aesthetically, Jones also wisely applies a strong hipster/bohemian vibe which deliberately evokes the ethos of Otto's own artistry.
Xavier Samuel gives a nicely natural, easygoing turn as Otto, and backing him up are Camilleri and Gaden in respectively authoritative and amusingly eccentric supporting work. But if Otto is the heart of this tale, Rachel Ward's Ada must be its soul, and it's her performance that impresses the most. She expertly depicts a woman openly reluctant to discuss her long-past intimate relationship with Otto, and reveals in dribs and drabs the low points in their relationship, particularly when he instantly forgot about her once they had to part.
Whether because some will struggle to follow it or others will find it too far-fetched or stylised, The Death & Life of Otto Bloom certainly isn't for everybody. But that's exactly its agenda, and overall every minute of it simply captivated me.
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