» Sydney Film Festival – Wake Up review Something You Said

Sydney Film Festival – Wake Up review

June 14, 2024

We sent Addy Fong to check out Wake Up at Sydney Film Festival. Here are her thoughts:

Directed by collective RKSS (Roadkill Superstars, consisting of François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell), and opening with a scene directly addressing the audience and breaking the fourth wall, Wake Up starts off strong with a group of rebellious teenage activists on the verge of causing havoc. They’re in animal masks and film themselves on their phones in the name of social justice, documenting their fight against mass consumerism which has been choking the oppressed, the animals, the environment, trees and shit.

Known for their previous work Turbo Kid and We Are Zombies, RKSS’ Wake Up is an action-paced slasher that keeps audiences on their toes with a story driven by characters facing imminent danger and paired with a catchy upbeat soundtrack that screams ‘cool and alternative’.

Unfortunately, I’m not ‘cool and alternative’ but instead older, cynical, and daggy. I must confess I spent a good chunk of the film ironically writing notes on a greasy mass produced paper bag. Unable to read my messy writing afterwards, the shame of pre-film junk food consumption and what seemed at the time resourceful note taking, led to shame and utter confusion when the lights of the cinema turned on afterwards and I was confronted with the horrors of my illegible scribbles.

Screening at Sydney Film Festival on World Environment Day, I’ll admit my interpretation of this film may be tinged with a hint of scepticism. Perhaps I’ve developed what I’ll call environmental awareness fatigue due to the rise in eco-activist content. I’ll admit I’m starting to get sick of films about young people wanting to change the world. I’ve been told time and time again, ‘films need to have a purpose’ and whilst I understand completely, sometimes, your girl just wants a good slasher film. Wake Up’s title implies this call to action, an eventual awakening from the zombie like state many viewers find themselves in whilst trapped by the pitfalls of mass overconsumption.

The question of classifying the film as an environmental or horror, I’ll leave it up to audiences to decide. Personally, I think it’s both. Wake Up works well as social commentary on environmental issues and serves as a highly enjoyable slasher. Horror is often used to push social boundaries and present audiences with intriguing and confronting issues of the day. Directors RKSS are is clever in keeping the action contained within the script choosing to film in one location ensuring characters and audiences feel trapped or confined through the use of tight shots, enclosing walls, and locked doors. From a practical level, setting in the story in location just makes sense logistically.

Despite its horror classification, fear isn’t the primary emotion I felt whilst watching. Torn between the protagonists and the antagonist, perhaps due to what felt like a lack of character development in the story, I found myself siding with both the rebellious teenage activists and the blood thirsty security guard who, in his twisted mind, was just protecting the store and doing his job. Perhaps he went a bit overboard with killing the activists but the isolation of working an overnight shift does stuff to people.

When antagonists are presented with a sympathetic backstory, as Wake Up did in its opening scenes, it’s easier for audiences to empathise with them. A weak point perhaps could be that sometimes acts of violence presented in Wake Up felt over the top, overly dramatic, and unbelievable. Like many in the audience I found myself laughing at how ridiculous everything seemed. Furniture was destroyed, ‘no more deforestation’ smeared across cupboards, bathrooms drenched with pigs blood, mirrors are broken, and neat displays of a furniture store destroyed in the name of environmental awareness.

Horror presents us with ethnical and moral dilemmas, how do people respond when confronted by the impossible. The moral panic seen in many horror films, the Satanic Panic of the 80s as an example, and echoes to us social issues of the day. Wake Up presents this sort of moral panic regarding human’s relationship with the environment and the inevitable destruction of earth due to the humanity’s actions. The justification of violence in eco-revenge films such as Wake Up seem to follow the trend of environmental sustainability and ‘doing good’ through advocacy or ‘green washing’. Paired with the rise of vandalism and the destruction of property as seen in the film, audiences should to consider the implications of the characters decisions within the film and how these play out in real world contexts.

Masked by cliches and predictable tropes often found in horror, the crazed loner with hunting skills and nothing to lose, incompetent authorities slow to act, teenagers illegally trespassing after hours, trapped in an abandoned location with no escape, the cutting off of communication lines, blood splattering deaths, reluctant heroes (often women) forced to fight and survive through a call to action. Ironically, technology used in the film becomes this metaphorical mask that seperate the audience and the film’s characters creating a distance between them, causing to me, what felt like a disconnect.

The use of the mobile phone as the main way for the young activists to communicate sets up an interesting premise in the film, playing homage to the cultural relevance of a young, constantly online generation reliant on technology. This unhealthy dependancy on the mobile leads ultimately to their downfall. The film cleverly integrates phone footage to show the way framing or what is seen on screen can distort the narrative and an audience’s understanding of a situation. The integration of easily accessible everyday technology within the film’s narrative from mobile phones, discord chats, camcorders, and security camera footage is an interesting technical approach to filmmaking, this modern blend of the using found footage as seen in horror blends together well to help create a contemporary approach to storytelling which feels relevant to modern times.

Again horror is used in pushing social boundaries, and directors RKSS’s Wake Up acts as commentary on the use of social media or technology as a weapon or a tool to undertake evil acts committed by man. Wake Up isn’t the strongest or most shocking horror film out there, it could be been perceived as generic as the mass produced flatpack furniture the shop the film is set in. This said, I found Wake Up to be an enjoyable experience, it’s gory, violent, creatively executed, and the film’s tension is held well throughout, and the payoff is bloody brilliant.

Sydney Film Festival continues until 16th June, For all the info you need, go here: https://www.sff.org.au/program/browse/?type=Film&type=Event

Review by Addy Fong.