The 2018 mystery film Searching has an unparalleled control of its utilization of space that many films cannot dream of replicating. The form of film that is told solely through digital screens can perfectly set-up and frame all shots to make perfect use of the environment to their control. Normally, films have to make use of the environment already at play to create interesting shots or to draw the watcher’s eye; this could be in the form as wide as large landscape shots to convey breath of space or as small as a shot through a windows blind to coney paranoia and the feeling of watching. In both these instances, the cinematographer is making creative use of a restrictive space. While there are restrictions to the way Searching can film and get shots, the actual space of the computer screen always remains a control. The filmmaker has full control of how to present objects on the digital screen and even has a cursor that allows the audience’s eyes to follow exactly where the filmmaker wants them to be. It is within this extreme control of space that the makers were also able to embed supplemental narratives that most will not catch on a first watch.
The most common and talked about secondary plot line in Searching is the existence of aliens and how the internet is reacting to that news. Through a series of recommended videos and articles, we can see that there have been a series of alien leaks that have a serious enough weight as to garner the president speaking on these events. Common online reading of this film suggests this narrative to be taken at face value. The final article that references this plotline throughout the film is titled “NASA calls emergency White House. Defense Secretary present.” This leaves an open ended conclusion to this narrative thread that allows the audience to ask what will become of these aliens and the United States response; however, the more interesting question to me is not what will become of the aliens but if they were really real at all? We have a proclivity to believe information that film presents to us but could this just be a more modern case of the unreliable narrator. The film presents all this information in the form of click-bait articles and videos which are most likely being recommended to our protagonist David Kim as he is constantly on the paranoia side of the internet looking into hypotheticals on the case of his daughter. The searching for patterns in life, especially when presented in a medium of investigation that makes us hypervigilant, often has us confirm things that are true from the connections alone. The common Beatles theory “Paul Is Dead” is a great example of this phenomenon where people will believe the outrageous specifically due to the mountain of information that can be tied together to support the claim. Searching is no different, for by seeing how all these articles and videos link together, we immediately have the inclination to believe it to be true and the filmmakers are rewarding us for our observant nature. The presence of these articles goes back into the environmental design of the film, and their inclusion creates a further sense of realism to what David Kim would actually recommend; therefore, while they serve a purpose in the narrative to create realism and are connected, their mere existence does not confirm that the world of Searching secretly has aliens that are being dealt with on a governmental level.
The environment plays another larger role in the film when it comes to the lake as the place is both reflected in Margot’s real and digital life. Barbosa Lake is the lake that Margot likes to visit where she feels she can be alone in the world, while also simultaneously broadcasting her experience there to the world. Barbosa Lake is where the inciting incident of the movie also takes place and where Margot is eventually found near. It is here where she often talks to fish_n_chips, the police’s son Robert who is catfishing her. In the movie, they have a discussion about which Pokémon are their respective favorites. Margot answers Uxie, a generation four Pokémon that is a lake guardian and can be found in game at Fogbound Lake. Margot answers that she likes Uxie because she can make people forget, which is in reference to Uxie’s Pokedex entry that states: “[Uxie is] known as “The Being of Knowledge.” It is said that it can wipe out the memory of those who see its eyes.” Robert’s (A.K.A. fish_n_chips) replies by saing that Kecleon is his favorite Pokemon. Kecleon is a chameleon based Pokémon that name comes from the Japanese word to hid “kakureru” and chameleon. This is all to say that their Pokémon choices reflect their real life counterparts; the environment of Barbosa Lake makes Margot feel safe, which is the same environment in which Robert uses to reveal his disguise. The real life locations of the film and the digital one’s hint at merging together in the same way that Margot and Robert’s online personalities come together that creates chaos. Searching as a film takes care to embed its narrative with clues that come from the source it is taking inspiration from: the internet. I appreciate greatly the care they took to create these fake article sidebars and actually research into Pokémon to pick Margot and Roberts’ favorites that have thematic ties to the narrative. It is in no way a perfect depiction of the internet or internet subculture, but Searching is earnest in its attempt to replicate the world of the internet. Beautiful films all the time strive to capture environments truthfully in order to allow others to experience what being there is like, and Searching is no different in its approach to our modern world wide web.
Intermittent Mechanism 