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Collective: Unconscious

Name: Collective: Unconscious
Director: Lily Baldwin, Daniel Patrick Carbone, Lauren Wolkstein, Josephine Decker, Nuotama Bodomo
Released: 2016
Duration: 78 min

Representation Score

8.9/10

Excellent

2016

Not Rated

Director

Lily Baldwin, Daniel Patrick Carbone, Lauren Wolkstein, Josephine Decker, Nuotama Bodomo

Runtime

78 minutes

Average Rating

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New Showbiz Analysis

Unconscious succeeds as a subversive anthology that rejects traditional cinematic hierarchies. By employing a collaborative directorial approach, the film centers non-normative experiences and challenges the stability of social institutions through a surrealist lens. The work excels in its gendered perspectives and cultural critiques, using the subconscious to dismantle standard societal roles. While the experimental nature provides a platform for diverse creative voices, the abstract storytelling can make specific identity markers feel more like metaphors than explicit representations. Ultimately, the film is a bold exploration of the periphery of social reality, prioritizing psychological relativism over conventional, mainstream storytelling structures.

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Category Breakdown

Does Collective: Unconscious have LGBTQ+ representation?

Fair

The film explores LGBTQ dynamics through dream-like sequences, keeping queer identity and intimacy abstract rather than explicitly shown.

How does Collective: Unconscious portray gender?

Good

women's ability to drive the story is central, particularly through narratives of bodily and psychological transformation. The presence of multiple female directors ensures women drive the film's unsettling themes.

How racially and ethnically diverse is Collective: Unconscious?

Good

A diverse directorial team, including Nuotama Bodomo, helps the film avoid a monolithic, Anglo-centric viewpoint. Specific character racialities are obscured by the surreal vignettes.

How does Collective: Unconscious represent religion and culture?

Good

The film critiques Western social structures and institutional stability through surrealism. It prioritizes individual internal truths over organized religion or state-sanctioned reality.

Does Collective: Unconscious include disability representation?

Fair

Themes of psychological distress and bodily autonomy serve as metaphors for internal struggle. These motifs function more as surrealist devices than grounded representations of lived disability.

Present on Screen

Subverts traditional gender hierarchies by centering women's ability to drive the story and bodily transformation.
Challenges Western institutional stability through surrealism and non-linear narratives.
Utilizes a diverse directorial ensemble to avoid a monolithic, Anglo-centric viewpoint.

Limited or Absent

Queer identities and intimacy remain largely abstract and difficult to identify clearly.
Disability is treated through surreal metaphors rather than grounded, lived experiences.
Abstract dream-logic can obscure specific racial and identity-based character details.

Official Synopsis

A man and his grandmother hide out from an ominous broadcast. The Grim Reaper hosts a TV show. The formerly incarcerated recount and reinterpret their first days of freedom. A suburban mom's life is upturned by the beast growing inside of her. And a high school gym teacher runs drills from inside a volcano. What happens when five of independent film's most adventurous filmmakers join together to literally adapt each other’s dreams for the screen?

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