Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: EXIT 8 [Cannes Film Festival 2025 - Cannes, France]

The aspect of repetition is a question of pace but of context. The beauty of "Exit 8" [Midnight/Out Of Competition] is using source material that is obvious from the video game world but placing it in the context of the human condition. The movie follows its lead [Kazunari Ninomiya) as he is in a subway car and gets a certain piece of news from his girlfriend as a baby screams on a train in the arms of a mother. This is paralleled as he is hearing music on his headphones in the guide of Ravel's "Bolero" which provides a wonderful antecedent to what happens to him. The movie starts off in POV and like "The Platform" revels in its levels. Here, the intention is for the person in these subway hallways to get to Exit 8 but they have to recognize anomalies. There is a lot of detail here to keep track of but it is also quite economical in certain ways. That is not to say that the film is easy to make. It is undeniably complicated but it keeps moving because it knows where it is going. It is built in three acts from slightly different perspectives. There is more than one person trapped in this loop but each have their own reasons.

We learn two of them though the middle one is the one that is explained the least and yet there are likely more versions of him. Some might be figments or constructs of whatever program is running. What is great is that the film does not necessitate to explain how this is happening or why...just that it does. Of course the construct is that it is all in this man's mind of what he is dealing with on a practical emotional level and certain cutaways towards the end speak to that along with aspects of water. The reality is that the film works towards its ending a couple times but it ends in exactly the right way. Whether or not this how the game ends is still a question though but from a narrative perspective it really gets it. The movie never gets too emotional, it is almost a little too technical for that and there are moments when it is overplayed but there is very little dialogue which measn certain ideas of how the characters feel need to be very clear. But again coming back to Bolero really gives it a nice sense because it is moving at a place until it doesn't and could easily start back over again. A

By Tim Wassberg