As a climate-change apocalypse approaches New York, “Exposure 36” (2022) follows Cam (Charles Ouda), an aspiring photographer. Resigned to dying, he spends humanity’s final days delivering drugs to his customers. When one of his customers goes missing, he gets stuck at the crossroads of politics and an underground criminal world.
“Exposure 36” is an ambitious film with a lot going for it. I love that the protagonist is black, especially in an end of the world indie film. Cam is laconic and slender—a normal guy with artsy aspirations but wounded and stuck, not a person who looks as if he can handle himself physically. I love that the movie is set in New York, my hometown and one of the most photogenic cities in the world. I love the ticking clock on the apocalypse in the backdrop.
“Exposure 36” has lots of great facets. Mackenzie Mauro, the writer and director, does a great job of conveying through visual shorthand what we are watching-the present, a memory, a prophecy. The film is visually reminiscent of Michael Mann’s “Manhunter” (1986), especially during the sequences when Cam has portentous visions warning him of death through blue and danger through red. When he talks to the deceased, Mauro adds dashes of “Donnie Darko” (2001). It is gorgeous to watch. There are some evocative atmospheric shots sprinkled through the film like the Northern Lights hovering over the city. The final scene mirrored the last scene in “Take Shelter” (2011). The soundtrack is perfect and felt as if Cliff Martinez, the composer of Nicholas Winding Refn’s “The Neon Demon” (2016) or Steve Moore, the composer of “The Guest” (2014), could have made it. There are also dreamlike harp notes like the ones that appeared in “Zola” (2021). Lulu (Delissa Reynolds) was the most interesting supporting character and grounded the film in real emotion in a way that other supporting characters did not. She felt like a real person that you could meet. Who paid the butterflies?
“Exposure 36” lacks in execution. Cam’s inexplicable supernatural sight does not have to be explained, but has Cam always lived with this issue, is it drug induced or is it a side effect of the cataclysm on the horizon? It is happening to Cam, not a stylistic way for the film to reveal what is happening, because he acts on his prophetic insights, but it bothered me that he never mentioned it even when asked. There are some neat tracking shots through a tunnel during the opening credits or early in the film in a car looking up. Because the film is told from Cam’s perspective, but the film never shows Cam riding in a car or entering the city at the beginning of the film, it was just included because it was cool. Those tracking shots were extraneous to the story and should have been omitted, or we needed a single scene showing Cam getting out of a cab to ground the imagery in the action unfolding on screen. Similarly, when we first meet a couple of threatening guys, the film felt as if it shifted from following Cam to them, but after a beat too long, the film reveals that Cam is nearby. The film should never have left Cam after establishing its pattern. It feels sloppy. In contrast, Mauro did it well when Cam checks on a couple of customers being jovial in a diner. After he leaves, the camera lingers without playing their conversation, which Cam would not be able to hear from his perch.
Little things bothered me. Red cap letters indicate what day it is except for Sunday, the beginning of the final day shown in “Exposure 36.” The film shows us most of the thirty-six photographs that Cam takes, but omits six. The film takes its time to show when he hits number 28 of the negative, but it is 25. Why? Why not show all of them? Why do we not get to see the last one? I tend to be a completist so maybe most viewers will not notice or mind. It is a short film so it is possible to show all of them or not, but after showing each one then stopping, it feels abrupt.
“Exposure 36” story does not quite work. The dialogue feels stilted, not organic, and the cast’s chemistry does not click. By the denouement, early dialogue makes more sense, but when originally delivered, it tries too hard to be witty but falls like an arrow missing its target. There are some funny lines, but still did not coax out any genuine, audible laughter. Instead of making viewers curious about Cam’s mysterious past through vague allusions, the reveal does not feel like a long-awaited answer, but trite—the fridged girlfriend. Katie, a customer’s sister, did not work as a character for me. The film aims to show that there is a connection between Cam and Katie, but Katie alternated between being entitled and trying too hard to be clever. Ma’am, you cannot kick people out of their apartments. She seemed to change depending on the needs of the scene, not a credible, cohesive character.
“Exposure 36” aims to be an indie film meditating on loss and grief, but it descends into an existential neo-noir and does not work. Instead of lingering on Cam’s personal and professional losses, Cam gets besieged with pleas for help from people who only seem to be acquaintances or customers, not friends as he classifies them. Things happen to him instead of delving into him as the main character in his life. To earn exploring the criminal underworld, a viewer would have to understand the political backdrop of the mayor race prior to the apocalypse announcement. The diegetic background sound of a radio personality reading the news introduces the political environment. Most people are going to miss it, but it is vital to the plot. Cam is an everyman plunged into a world that he is ill-suited for and does not understand. His transformation from man in existential crisis to man of action could have worked as a standalone movie, but it felt like a tropey gearshift to avoid emotional substance and make the film more mainstream. When the apocalypse takes a backseat to a local group of toughs and a corrupt real estate mogul, it feels as if one storyline needs to go, or the underworld needed to be developed earlier in the film.
“Exposure 36” uses the more violent and immediate threat to spur the protagonist into action in a way that the end of the world does not because it is theoretical. The protagonist finally gets invested in something and wants to survive. He reclaims his identity and stops being passive. One fight scene felt plausible and was Hitchcockian in the way that the camera became a weapon and captured each moment. It felt straight out of a Brian DePalma film. Ordinary characters had to improvise and flail against more seasoned opponents.
His denouement confrontation with the big bad makes him take a back seat to another character. At the eleventh hour, this character inexplicably gains fighting skills, which will retroactively make the viewer question whether this person should have been the main character instead of Cam since this character is at the center of all the action. It felt as if the filmmaker wanted a woman and a black man facing off against the big bad as a cathartic moment to take a swipe at Presidon’t without being too explicit or alienating. There could have been subtle allusions such as a well-done steak. The point of this subplot appeared to be to show how unconcerned the Big Bad was about the end of the world and only cared about his reptilian needs because it is absurd that his last three days alive are dominated with small fries. He lacks the capacity to consider himself vulnerable to oblivion or more quotidian threats.
“Exposure 36” benefits from repeat viewings because once a viewer knows what to expect, one can appreciate the way that it is told, but first-time viewers may lose interest at the sudden tone shift and feel ripped off for not getting something more poignant and meditative throughout. It is a promising start for first time filmmaker Mauro.
