Speaking about Tales from the Loop, one of the most recent Amazon productions, in a series of advertisement videos, creator and screenwriter Nathaniel Halpern, together with a few of the filmmakers which directed some of its episodes (amongst them Jodie Foster), they describe a magical place – a space where the retro-future aesthetic traces the outline for the existence and interactions of a number of people. And they’re right about it. The series isn’t interesting in building a puzzle – as it might seem at first glance – but in constructing a mix of events in which most characters appear and disappear within the stories, dictated by the script’s needs. To be more precise, this handful of characters, who are continuously interacting, is the main subject of a series of events which, in spite of being seemingly unrelated, are in fact communicating with each other, even by means of the most subtle details.

But, in order to be able to grasp the aesthetics and concepts that lie at the basis of the series, it’s worth mentioning the fact that Nathaniel Halpern was fully inspired by the digital paintings of Simon Stålenhag, a Swedish artist. His works, which at one point became very popular on the internet, are a series of elaborate memories spun around objects that are spread all around his hometown. These strange objects, which are the only remains of a defunct factory, were collected in the Swedish artist’s body of work under the shape of a series of retro-fantastic stories. The series understands this fact quite well, and the way in which these works of art come to life and are set in motion is at least as stunning as their source material is.

The Loop is a factory that lies beneath a small town in Ohio. And it’s a place where miracles literally happen. That’s about all we know about it because the access to the interior of the factory and its activities is very limited. The majority of the townspeople work there, and some of their kids are thinking of following in their footsteps. The factory was built many years ago by a visionary character, which is performed by actor Jonathan Pryce. But, as the years pass and the factory becomes increasingly modernized, some of its objects reach the surface of the town. They are, as it is, the main common point of all the fantastical happenings in the small community. In the first episode, we’re introduced to a lost girl, which is curious about everything that goes on in her surroundings and in the mysterious factory in her vicinity. In the forest that borders the town, a decrepit robot follows her around. It’s inoffensive, it’s creaking from all of its joints and it flees upon being seen (and it will reappear as a background character in a few other episodes). The girl makes friends with a boy, and their little adventures will eventually lead him to his house – his mother being performed by Rebecca Hall. Nothing is as it seems in the relationship that develops between the girl and the mother, the plot twist is hard to anticipate, and the tenderness with which this episode is directed makes it my favorite, by far.

In the second episode, a rusty metallic orb unleashes a transfer of people onto two teenage friends, which take turns entering it.The decision taken by one of them, as he’s inhabiting the other’s body, will prove to have dramatic consequences. A highly interesting concept lies behind the series’ third episode – a young woman discovers a device that enables her to freeze time to a standstill. She uses this object to consummate a relationship with a boy that she fancies – which would otherwise be impossible, in the „unfrozen” world. The woman reappears in a further episode, in a story related to another one of the town’s inhabitants, as she tries to repair his tractor, which works without touching the earth underneath it. The relationships between the characters come together and then apart in the following episodes. We learn the story of an amputated arm that is replaced by a robotic prosthetic, we find out about the existence of a parallel world, where the number one enemy of a man is actually a version of himself, or about the echo that is generated by another metallic orb – which indicates precisely how much time you have left to live. From episode to episode, judging by the case, most of the central characters had already served (or were about to) a secondary role in someone else’s story.

It was quite easy for some critics to wave the show away as being a mix between Stranger Things and Black Mirror. However, this liaison is almost non-existent. If one were to try, it could be compared to Steven Spielberg’s mid-80s (back when it was still relevant) anthology, Amazing Stories, which was reprised this year, having nothing left to say or show; everything that has been done in the meantime has been done much better. It’s true that Tales from the Loop has a pretty slow rhythm and that’s not exactly everyone’s taste. Some found this irritating, on the basis of a series of expectations that the show had never even promised, anyway. However, it’s true that sometimes it’s rather ambiguous. As I said earlier, we never really get to understand how things exactly work like in this mysterious factory. The meaning of the show isn’t about that. But this is only one of the many aspects that should pique one’s curiosity in order to question the existence of these mysterious objects and their effects.

Additionally, Amazon (Prime) is one of the few streaming platforms that allow filmmakers complete artistic freedom. Most of the time, shows don’t try to stand out due to their direction, don’t want to use their visual engagement to distract from the storytelling. But that doesn’t apply to this platform. A very good example of this exception would be Nicolas Winding Refn’s miniseries from last year, Too Old To Die Young, which is composed of ten episodes, but also the new and formidable show Upload, created and written by Greg Daniels.

Tales from the Loop is, ultimately, an amazing contemplation of a past future, one that is very personal (if one is to consider the works of Simon Stålenhag, of course), that has a visual character that is at least remarkable, and considerable attention for details. It’s bizarre and gorgeous at the same time, everything seems to construct a world that is small, yet gigantic and unknown, where curiosity defeats fears and answers sometimes arrive even before the question is asked.

Sebastian M. Ceolca

Film critic since 2008, film lover since he was 4 years old. Former editor for the ART7 cultural platform and former film programmer for the "Horror Saturday" section of the Romanian Cinematheque. He writes film and festival reviews wherever he can and wherever he is invited to do so. He loves cats, like most humans do, he's an amateur ornithologist and he'd much rather see a good 80s horror film than an awarded hollywoodian drama.