LFO (2013 - Swedish)

Studio:       Spectrevision
Director:    Antonio Tublen
Writer:       Antonio Tublen
Producer:  Alexander Brondsted, Fredric Ollerstam, Antonio Tublen
Stars:     Patrik Karlson, Izabella Jo Tschig, Ahnna Rasch, Per Lofberg, Erik Boren, Lukas Loughran

Review Score:

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Summary:

An audio enthusiast discovers a sound frequency he can use to control the minds of his next-door neighbors.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Robert – Having discovered he had a so-called “sound allergy” to his deceased, unfaithful wife Clara’s yoga music, Robert Nord uses experimental equipment in his basement to collaborate remotely with fellow audio enthusiast Sinus-San on isolating certain sounds.

Linn and Simon – Robert takes a romantic interest in his new neighbor Linn, who is married to Simon. Robert’s research reveals that he can plant subliminal ideas in a person’s mind using instructions spoken over a hypnotizing sound frequency. Robert keeps the discovery to himself.

Phase Two – Robert tests his invention by making Linn attracted to him and changing Simon’s disposition. Robert and Linn begin an affair. Sinus-San comes to Robert’s house and confronts Robert with his suspicion that he was cut out of the discovery. Robert continues subliminally manipulating Linn and Simon. Robert’s conscience manifests as his dead wife Clara and son Sebastian, who died after Robert tampered with Clara’s brakes.

Linn and Simon take a trip to Copenhagen and leave Robert to watch their home. Robert takes the opportunity to plant equipment for eavesdropping and controlling the couple’s actions remotely from his house. Robert progresses his affair with Linn while keeping Simon unaware and submissive.

The Family – Robert convinces Linn that she is his wife and Simon that he is their son Sebastian. Robert also turns Simon into their butler. While Sinus-San continues skulking about, Robert is able to dismiss police who come looking for Linn and Simon since they went missing from their own home. When the ongoing fantasy becomes too much maintenance, Robert returns Linn and Simon to their previous personalities, though he continues influencing their actions remotely.

Linn comes over and finally finds out Robert bugged her home. However, Linn becomes preoccupied with discovering through the microphone that Simon is cheating on her with her sister. Robert steps in to act as their therapist. Robert uses the situation to manipulate Linn into having sex with him while Simon watches as punishment for his infidelity.

A man representing Clara’s car manufacturer makes a settlement offer to Robert in exchange for not digging further into Robert’s case. Linn starts catching on that Robert may have something to do with her behavioral changes. Sinus-San tries blackmailing Robert over Clara’s death, but Robert uses the sound device to have Sinus-San banish himself to North Korea.

Robert swallows pills to commit suicide over his ongoing guilt, then changes his mind. Robert confesses to killing Clara during another encounter with the insurance adjuster, but manipulates the man into developing compassion for his clients.

The World 1.0 – Robert goes globetrotting, tasking Linn and Simon to tend to his house and chores in his absence. After seeing the sad state of the world, Robert returns home and has the couple assist him in recording music he intends to use to change the world. Meanwhile, Robert’s mind continues cracking.

The Manual – Robert has Linn and Simon help him write “The Manual for a Better World” to come up with a plan for changing humanity. The revelations alter Robert’s mindset.

The World 2.0 – Robert uses the device to make himself more altruistic. He then begins climbing various political ranks to become an influential world leader, becoming a UN general and the first foreign-born president of the United States before being declared God. Acting on his godhood, Robert broadcasts a radio message worldwide instructing everyone to kill themselves so that the planet can heal from being harmed by mankind.

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Review:

Few things can turn a film into a disappointment faster than a great concept executed to mediocre effect.  “LFO” is a top tier example.  Its story of a paunchy Average Joe who stumbles upon the secret to mind control is rife with the potential for clever ideas both comedic and frightening.  But a script that settles for a limiting tale about reprogramming the couple next door is too blasé and too predictable to ever be resoundingly satisfying.

Being an unnoticeable nobody is arguably the only thing Robert Nord has ever been truly successful at.  Overdue for his regular trim at Supercuts, Robert is the kind of middle-aged sad sack who wears the skinny end of his necktie longer than the fat end.  His only sanctuary for escaping the tedious drone of a nondescript life and his nagging cheat of a wife is the homemade sound studio built in his man cave refuge of a basement.

While fiddling with frequencies as part of an ongoing experiment to cure a “sound allergy” in his quest for meditative peace, Robert inadvertently finds a particular hum so soothing that the human brain cannot help but become hypnotized.  When he discovers that subliminal suggestions made during these Zen moments can implant instructions into any susceptible mind, the armchair scientist puts his accidental invention to the test by turning his new neighbors into unknowing lab rats.

Secretly commanding someone to act against his/her individual will is hardly an innocent objective.  But circumstances progress from a lightheartedly questionable morality to a dangerously problematic predicament as Robert ensconces himself in an unstoppable snowball of ever-increasing chaos to repair the side effects of each subsequent hypnosis session.

Naturally, Robert convinces his comely neighbor Linn to subconsciously find him irresistibly sexy.  The bigger challenge is moving her husband Simon out of the way, a task that proves surmountable when Robert casts the poor spouse as a subservient house slave.  These slow-falling dominos make for momentary amusements as “LFO” takes a turn into conceptually darker territory while Robert ups the ante in just how far he will go to alter unnatural behavior.  Unfortunately, it is this line straddle between not quite cautionary sci-fi and drily satirical humor that gives the film an undecidedly ambiguous personality.

“LFO” is a 90-minute film that feels like 190, and it is the languid pacing that prevents the storyline from fully spreading its artistic wings.  Act one is a belabored explanation of Robert’s invention, which stalls the roll of the storyline in order to justify the science behind how such auditory mind control might even be possible.  It is an unnecessary indulgence to make the script credible when anyone already onboard with the premise could care less about planting convicted roots that deeply into the fiction’s soil.

When Robert goes on holiday and leaves Linn and Simon to care for the house in his absence, he leaves them a list of instructions.  Before departing, Robert verbally bullet points each and every task to the letter from various maintenance chores to painting a room.  Robert goes into wall color options on the latter assignment, vacillating between some kind of cream or eggshell hue well beyond the point of tedium.  I can’t imagine what writer/director Antonio Tublen felt was being added to the story with such long-winded tangents, but the details become so excessive throughout the film that the viewer has already mentally moved on while “LFO” is still rambling.

Whether intentionally as part of the movie’s theme, or unintentionally as a result of the movie’s structure, “LFO” is a taxing experience that can be as hypnotically draining as the monotonous hum of low frequency oscillation.  It could be partly due to the primary staging being set against beige walls in single rooms, but the drab atmosphere, slow-rolling tempo, and attention investment required by unimportant asides is exhausting.  “LFO” dances around fascinating possibilities to be sure, but the final delivery is funneled through a stifling plotline that has too little payoff.

Review Score:  60

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