How Alejandro G. Iñárritu Used Virtual Reality to Tackle Illegal Immigration
The sand is coarse under foot and the moonlight barely illuminates the way through the rocky desert terrain as you edge along the Mexican and American border. Suddenly there’s shouting. Vans hurtle forward in the distance, helicopters whirl overhead, as border guards leap out of the shadows, rifles at the ready, ordering you and your fellow immigrants to your knees.
No, this is not a ripped-from-the-headlines version of a chose your own adventure game. It’s a shattering new virtual reality experience from Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Emmanuel Lubezki called “Carne y Arena (Virtually Present, Physically Invisible),” that is being unveiled at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Filmmakers have been toying with virtual reality for years, but there’s never been an installation of quite this size and scope. Usually, Iñárritu told Variety, the technology has been used to hawk Hollywood blockbusters, not to tackle hot button issues.
“The big mistake of VR is that it has been considered an extension of cinema,” said Iñárritu. “It has been considered a promotional tool. It has been devalued. This is an art in itself.”
The roughly six-minute experience is being backed by Legendary Entertainment and Fondazione Prada, neither of whom plan to make a penny on the installation. It will be exhibited at Fondazione Prada in Milan before coming to the Los Angeles County Art Museum.
Both men are careful to note that “Carne y Arena” is not cinema, with a director dictating where a viewer’s eye is meant to land. It’s a 360 degree experience that is its own beast. But Lubezki believes virtual reality is a natural extension of recent works such as “The Revenant” and “Birdman” that used long takes to create a feeling of verisimilitude and plunge people into a frontier landscape or backstage on Broadway.
“If the studios don’t get into it, they will be irrelevant soon,” he said. “Filmmakers will be very attracted to this.”
See the full story here: http://variety.com/2017/film/markets-festivals/alejandro-g-inarritu-virtual-reality-1202430264/