There are superficial headline grabs to today’s pick (Space Lasers! VR!) that (hopefully) will ensure your interest and cause you to grant us your time. C’mon! The subject is cool and science-y, plus VR filmmaking is all the rage. Just be aware that this is Short of the Week, and while these surface pleasures are available, The Superlative Light has a level of thematic depth, structure, and formal experimentation to sustain itself long past an average web content lifecycle.

An intriguing experiment by one of our favorite documentary filmmakers, Ben Steinbauer (Calls to Okies, Winnebago Man), the film is a well-crafted and engaging artist portrait of Robert Shults, a Texas photographer most famous for his series on The Texas Petawatt Laser, a device which can replicate the intensity of immense cosmic events. The laser can shine brighter than a collapsing star, but only for the barest fraction of time. Shults is more than a product of his most famous work though, the film is rich in narrative development, tracing Robert’s arc from homelessness to success.

(This is a 360 version. For full effect watch in a Chrome or Firefox browser, or in the YouTube app. For best effect, pair with a lightweight VR headset like Google Cardboard)

However, this fascinating new short documentary is, in fact, two new documentaries—one in 2D, one in 360 VR. Hold on, is that right? The two films have the same title after all, and are identical in scene structure, voiceover, archival photos and so forth, so really they are just versions of a film. Yet, the two pieces are pretty different! Rather than simply flattening and cropping the 360 image for 2D, the pair were shot separately yet simultaneously. The result is not analogous to a 3D film, as the two films share almost zero footage. You wouldn’t call Gus Van Sant’s Psycho the same film as Hitchcock’s would you? Are the two films simultaneous adaptions of one another? 

Existential questions aside, comparing the differences between the versions is fascinating in terms of understanding how talented filmmakers are thinking about 360 VR as a medium. While I was a bit annoyed by the high placement of the camera in many scenes, and in areas of shots there is still a lot of curvature, Steinbauer thoughtfully uses the technology in practical ways to further his story, and thinks about how the technology plays into the themes of the film. 

One of my favorite examples of 360 cleverly used in The Superlative Light is a scene early on where Shults is robbed of his camera gear. Shot as a re-enactment, Shults describes being distracted by a duo of grifters—one distracted him, while the other snuck into his tent and ripped him off. In the 2D version the scene is conventionally cinematic: shot reverse shot of the conversation, have the man sneaking up be shown in the corner of the frame, cut to a closeup of the theft he’s performing. The 360 however is from a static viewpoint, but the actions are on opposite sides of the experience. Many filmmakers and viewers creating for VR complain about the difficulty of directing attention in an immersive environment, how do you cue audiences to where they should look? That difficulty was actually made an asset in this scene though, as I could organically experience the event from a perspective similar to Shults—I was so focused on the conversation he was having that I almost didn’t even notice the thief sneaking up behind me. 

I would again caution against the impression that The Superlative Light is merely an experimental curiosity, as in both versions Steinabuer focuses strongly on pleasing symmetries. This review is already quite long, so forgive me for the lack of detail, but the concept of home is used in an interesting way as a framing device for the film, and Steinbauer and Shults connect that through a meditation on time, setting up dualistic oppositions visually throughout the film focusing on future and past. There is also a pleasing “peeling of the onion” aspect to the film project as a whole. Shults shoots pictures. Steinbauer is shooting a film on Shults, and creates re-enactments of the Shults’ past. Shults’ new photo project is him taking photos of Steinbauer shooting re-enactments for a film about Shults the shooter of photos. Steinbauer jokes about it a bit in the film’s behind the scenes, and it is funny! The differences between the two versions are illuminating on the challenges and opportunities for storytelling in this nascent medium, but fortunately the film’s thematic depths prove interesting no matter which adventure you choose (ideally both!).