A morality play for the Facebook generation

This is not a film review. Mainly because it would be presumptuous to pass myself off as a film critic, one of that rare breed of hacks who have unfailingly skewered every single film I have ever loved. In fact, this was the case last week, with Rage, Sally Potter's highly stylised 95-minute ‘exercise in cinema povera'.

The film was universally panned by critics at the Berlin film festival last February. Following its premiere at St James Cavalier last Thursday, Maltatoday's critic lampooned it as ‘juvenile', calling its monologues ‘woefully unoriginal'. The UK's Independent on Sunday was kinder, although the best oblique compliment Jonathan Romney could muster was: ‘Rage was hollow but handsome [...] a neat, ironic comment on the glamour that it satirises.' And yet he goes on to call it a ‘purely plastic creation'. Ouch.

If you were to heed their advice, you would think Rage was mediocre. It was not, and I feel compelled to defend it.

The reason all these critics have pooh-poohed Sally Potter's brainchild is that they were expecting mordant social commentary on the fashion industry. If this had truly been her aim, Potter would have failed miserably. But she hasn't, precisely because this was never her intention.

The film asks you to believe that it was filmed on a twelve-year-old boy's mobile phone camera. A precocious twelve-year-old dubbed Michelangelo, who (improbably) managed to gain behind-the-scenes access to a fashion show designed by the vainglorious Merlin (Simon Abkarian, who delivers a rather obvious caricature of John Galliano), which he then secretly uploads online. The film is a series of interviews with the characters that populate fashion's netherworld, from its corporate fat cats right down to those at the very bottom of its pecking order: the Latino seamstress (Adriana Barraza) whose invisible zips and hems are her pride and joy, and the bodyguard (John Leguizamo) who claims he too has ‘thoughts'.

Potter sets out to satirise the age of the confessional, where everyone who is a somebody (and quite a few nobodies too) get their ‘fifteen minutes of fame'. Warhol's famous saying is ominously intoned by one character: Minx (Jude Law), a B-list, transgender model with a fake Eastern European accent, and this sets the tone for the entire oeuvre. Yet, you would not guess that this is Potter's true intent from her script, a series of entirely superficial monologues, which perfectly fit her cast of equally callow characters.

What gives it away is her medium - indeed, Marshall McLuhan's truism ‘the medium is the message' never rang so true. Potter's film premiered on mobile phones, followed by a simultaneous worldwide screening in art house cinemas and on YouTube. Viewers could send their feedback and questions to Potter and her cast in real time via Twitter and Skype. The premise of the film itself was that it was filmed on a teenage boy's mobile phone, and then uploaded onto a website that became an Internet phenomenon.

The fashion industry is fickle, just like pouring your heart out to a teenage boy's webcam - or updating a Twitter status. Potter's characters keep spilling their soul out to Michelangelo's camera even after they express their faux indignation upon discovering the existence of his website. The seamstress claims: ‘I want to be invisible', yet keeps talking to his camera, just like your average reality show participant. The bodyguard self-importantly declares, ‘I have thoughts too, you know', instantly reminding viewers of countless navel-gazing Facebookers, unknown bloggers, or online commentators who all share the view that they have something ‘important' to say. Seen in this light, the superficiality of Potter's monologues seems intentional. Given a computer and an internet connection, we can all become celebrities.

Potter also highlights how sharing our thoughts online can bring about tumultuous change. In some cases this can be positive, say by sweeping the first black President of the US into power, or by uniting environmental activists and other social movements, as documented extensively in Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells's The Rise of the Network Society (1996). In other cases, its effects can be catastrophic. The film reaches its epic climax when teenagers obsessed with Michelangelo's website storm the catwalk resulting in a violent bloodbath. More close to home, online commenting, blogging, and YouTube videos have fanned far-right sentiment leading to widespread hysteria about immigration.

The Facebook generation is completely desensitised to death. Potter's characters react to the death of a model by documenting their grief on Michelangelo's camera. The perceptive viewer will be reminded of Facebookers grieving for Michael Jackson or Patrick Swayze, celebrities they never knew and never cared about. This is the same self-adoring generation that skips funerals, and then gives its condolences via Facebook or by commenting at the bottom of an article in a website.

Rage is a self-contained send up of the very same new media that was used to launch it. Potter has written a morality play for the Facebook generation, ‘Lord of the Flies' for those who only have time to update their Twitter status or download the latest iPhone app. Those critics who search for depth in Potter's monologues are as deluded as those who look for a human connection in their Facebook newsfeed.

Anna Abela is reading for a Doctor of Laws. She is a former editor of The Insiter, published by Insite -The Student Media Organisation.