I have always regarded lost media and conspiracy theories as frivolous entertainment that I put on when I need some thrill in my otherwise mundane life. However, Chronovisor, with its blend of found footage, religion and techno-horror, is one of the most bewitching and cerebral films I have ever seen.
Directed by Kevin Walker and Jack Auen, Chronovisor follows Béatrice (Anne-Laure Sellier), an austere and eremitic philosophy professor at Columbia University. The story revolves around her discovery of the titular apparatus, an enigmatic machine invented by Benedictine monk Pellegrino Ernetti that allows users to time travel and witness any historical event on its screen, including the Crucifixion and a lost classical tragedy.
However, the monk vanished without a trace, and information on the machine seemed to have been purposefully concealed from then on. Béatrice is fixated on understanding the chronovisor, poring over obscure books, magazines and tapes and plunging headfirst into mania, until she finds the machine in a Portuguese village.
One might be tempted to quickly dismiss the Chronovisor as complete fiction, but ‘Pellegrino Maria Ernetti’ (1925-1994) was a real clergyman who claimed to have invented the chronovisor. Sellier, a professor of behavioural sciences at HEC Paris, also convincingly plays the scholar as she endlessly dives into rabbit holes. This delicate straddling of fact and fiction invites the viewer to question what is and is not real in the film.
Chronovisor closely follows the arc of the original sin. Béatrice knows the machine can cause users to lose their sense of reality and befuddle the images with their own memory, yet she locates and reaches for the machine unhesitatingly in a trance-like state. Intriguingly, the narrative never establishes why Béatrice is drawn to the chronovisor in the first place, perhaps a commentary on the allure of parapsychology and the occult.
There is no shortage of found footage and archives in the film, and it frequently uses shots of texts and tapes from Béatrice’s point of view to further the plot. Shot on a 16mm film, the textured quality of the film is also immediately apparent, and the screen crops into a 1.33:1 aspect ratio in the opening scene, making the film itself feel like archival material.
Visually, Chronovisor impeccably captures the dark academia aesthetic, with many scenes taking place in the brooding, dark wood libraries of New York City, only illuminated by banker’s lamps and monitors. Despite being set in the modern day, not once does the film show a computer, but instead opting for typewriters, cassette tapes and VHS players.
The soundtrack is also beguiling, using whimsical and grandiose compositions by 19th century composer Gustav Holst and otherworldly Gregorian chants. Other scenes are characterized by an eerie stillness, punctuated with ASMR-like noises of writing and fluttering pages.
Moreover, Chronovisor depicts the realities of academic research, which is a rarity in mainstream cinema. The late nights, dead ends, finding conflicting information by different scholars and the other characters’ disinterest in Béatrice’s research all hit close to home. At the same time, the thrill of research breakthroughs is not overlooked, conveyed by extreme close-up shots of Béatrice’s eyes.
The film ends with a disturbing sequence, turning the observer to the observed and folding the plot’s timeline upon itself. This is perhaps the first time I felt relieved that a film had ended, not because it was poorly made, but because the suspense was finally over. Throughout the film, the viewer gradually understands that Béatrice will not experience a peaceful ending. The more she learns about the chronovisor, the more bizarre the circumstances become and the more detached from reality she is.
I am struck by the tension between intellectual inquiry and mystery in Chronovisor. The machine is intentionally sequestered in the film in fear of it falling into the wrong hands and eradicating the very concept of privacy. Are there technologies that are better left untouched and unseen? If so, what should we make of Béatrice’s relentless pursuit of the chronovisor? However, given the religious undertone of the film, it is just as plausible that the chronovisor is shunned so the church can monopolize the interpretation of biblical events, thus legitimizing its authority.
Either way, Chronovisor is a riveting and unsettling watch without any use of gore or cheap jump-scares. Its loftiness might evade mass interest, as confirmed by the yawns I heard from members of the audience, but those with an affinity for conspiracy, spirituality and academia will surely find much to contemplate from seeing the film.
