Written and directed by Dalano Barnes, Richard Fenwick, Derek Franzese, Diana Porter, Mikel J. Wisler and Béla Baptiste. In a future where technology feels more human than ever, people confront love, loss, and identity as the boundaries between man and machine disappear. Starring: Achmed Abdel-Salam, Tatjana Alexander, Béla Baptiste, William Bassoumba, Andrew Cullum, Joe Dempsie, Mandeep Dhillon, Georg Duffek, Michelle Falanga, Robert Firth, Lydia Helen, Hattie Hillard, Eric Kole, Cornelia Köndgen, Peter M. Marton, Natalija Pajevic, Kevin O. Peterson, Diana Porter, Shoshana Rae Stark, Kamran Vahabi and Ashley Whelan.
Creating a film which is an anthology of shorts and weaving them into something cohesive, complementary and consistent is deceptively difficult. Being able to mix different styles and tones and bring them together as pieces of a larger puzzle is something not a lot of filmmakers succeed with and unfortunately, neither does Merge. There is a familiar thread to the concepts that each filmmaker is bringing to the table but it’s such a wide topic, that it can’t manage to lace them together.
Especially when the transitions between each short are jarring and a little clumsy. Particularly moving from a tone that’s intentionally cold to one that’s traditionally romantic and sentimental. They do all tap into over-reliance on technology, diminishing emotional connections, and connections to the wider world, but none of them feel connected to one another. Another element of that is how some of them have opening credits, there should be a consistent style across all of them, and those credits should ideally be left until the very end as to not take viewers out of the experience. It’s little things like that which hamper the flow of Merge and exacerbate that issue with consistency.
When the film is already struggling with that, the rest of the experience relies upon the quality of the shorts, and sadly, none of them stand out. They are all of a similar quality both aesthetically and tonally, but they tend to have issues with feeling insincere, generic or have a reliance upon special effects, without the budget to pull them off. So, when none of them are making a strong impression, it’s hard for Merge to build any momentum.
You can see the intention behind Merge to create an anthology of films exploring what our potential future has in store and how the advancement of technology is likely going to negatively impact our emotions, empathy and ability to connect. However, the shorts all feel disconnected from one another, there aren’t any elements which stand out, and it struggles to make a lasting impression.
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