A year ago, I released my first and, so far, only YouTube video. It was a short, surreal, silent black and white film about a man eating a fried egg sandwich.

Although I didn’t say much in the strange, disease-riddled summer of 2020, the film’s basic premise was to imitate the inane, pretentious nonsense of arthouse films. Specifically, I wanted to show that even someone like myself, a person with no filmmaking experience or equipment, could churn out something that was, to a casual viewer, artistically purposeful.

I wanted to show that an artist’s only limit was their imagination, and that this wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

My setup was basic. I filmed on a phone. My tripod was a paper coffee cup with slits cut into it. For props I had a rubber chicken mask and three eggs. I had no filmmaking software and no knowledge of editing or musical composition.

Fortunately, Egg was never supposed to be good. In fact, it was supposed to be bad. The goal of Egg was to make a film with the outward air of artistic integrity but which contained absolutely nothing of substance. Like the third series of Twin Peaks, or most of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was, in essence, an elaborate, convoluted trick.

Egg was always intended to be meaningless. The storyboard was scribbled together in 10 minutes, using whatever first came to mind and given as little thought as possible. The chicken mask, despite its obvious connection to eggs, was included because I happened to have one to hand. Even the title was chosen for no other reason than I think eggs are inherently funny. The musical composition (if one can call it that) was made by hammering random keys on a piano and then layering as many effects as would fit on top.

The video’s description describes Egg as ‘A short dramatic film exploring the nature of perception, reality and consciousness.’ The words ‘perception’ ‘reality’ and ‘consciousness’ were all chosen at random, moments before the film was uploaded to YouTube. They have no intentional relevance to the film whatsoever.

But for all the cynicism behind Egg’s premise, there was always the faint hope that the viewer might see some kind of theme or meaning within the nonsense. I wanted partly to show that it is easy to make a vapid film with the outward appearance of depth, but I also hoped that maybe, just maybe, someone might be able to help decipher something meaningful amongst all the random noise.

And that’s why, on the kind-of-but-not-really-anniversary of SPPS’s first foray into filmmaking, we bring you the Egg Retrospective. We have allowed CineMike, Yam Towers’ resident film critic, out of his cell and sealed him in a room with nothing but a looped video of Egg playing on the wall.

Will he see Egg for what is really is, or will he be able to desperately glean some meaning from the bullshit and save us all? Let’s find out.

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CINEMIKE: Egg (2020)

Director: Sweet Potato Power Suplex

When the higher-ups at Yam Towers asked me to review Egg, I was unsure. Usually I hate arthouse films, and while I love the spirit of independent filmmaking, I feel some auteurs really need to go back and learn why the fundamentals are, well, fundamental. However, the prospect of being let out of the office stationery cupboard and given an extra ration of bread crusts every other weekend was enough to talk me into doing a quick review.

As this is a step removed from my usual content, this essay shall take the form of a scene-by-scene commentary. Before they locked the door, I got the impression that the SPPS executives really wanted me to find a point to this film. So that’s what I’ll do. Roll the projector!

Oh, it’s already rolling. Well then…

The film opens ominously. Foreboding music (‘the longer the note, the more dread’, as they say). A black screen.

Suddenly, a light. A rotund man in a shirt is staring at us. Are…are we in his fridge? The man’s hair is short, his head curiously egg-like. His shirt is ill-fitting and blindingly white. The filmmaker’s intent is clear here: to film Egg, one must become Egg.

He takes out a box of eggs, staring at it for far too long. We are in darkness again.

We slowly fade in on an empty plate. The camera is angled in such a way as to make it appear egg-shaped. A clever piece of cinematography by the filmmaker.

A single egg is placed on the plate. It is contrasted to the plate and appears almost yolk-like. This also gives us the first sense of the film’s meaning. An egg within an egg. A rich potential, bound within a brittle shell.

The illusion is shattered suddenly with the appearance of a second egg. It rolls next to the first before slowly, agonisingly, spinning to match the orientation of its double. What could this mean?

Our question is soon answered. We now hover over a frying pan, its shape mimicking the previous egg/plate layout, only now the white of the plate is replaced by a deep, intense black. Does this represent idyllic corruption, or is the negative space intended to convey a sense of boundlessness?

A hand enters from one side and cracks an egg into the pan. The shape it forms as it begins to fry is itself reminiscent of something egg-like. Again we have the motif of an egg within an egg. Except this time there is a cosmic significance: a bright contingent of potential expanding in the bleak, self-contained darkness.

A second egg joins the pan. What is this trying to convey? For now, the filmmaker is saying nothing.

We cut to the egg’s perspective, looking up at its tormentor. His face is bland, impassive. How does he feel about what he has done, about setting into motion this chain of events? Is he contemptuous of the eggs? Is he indifferent, or does he hang in anticipation?

We see the eggs again, closer now. Cooking. Sizzling. The music grows still more intense, mimicking the heat of the pan. What must it be like, to be an egg? To feel your being solidifying and denaturing in the harsh heat of reality, under the gaze of an omnipotent yet unknowable god?

We cut back to the man, except now something has changed. His impassive expression has changed to one of surprise, perhaps of shock. Could it even be horror on his face? What does he see in the eggs that has caused this? Have the eggs imparted some terrible truth to him? Perhaps he has become aware of what the eggs represent and sees himself in the pan.

He does not like what he sees. Is he no different to the eggs?

The egg stares back. The yolk possesses a translucence reminiscent of storm clouds, something both immense and inescapable. Within the yolk, we see both the potential for creation and destruction, but its true nature is mysterious and unknowable.

As we cut back to the man, the symbolism of the two-egg motif becomes clear. We see his eyes, close up, mirroring the form of the eggs in the pan. Pan surrounding white surrounding yolk; white surrounding iris surrounding pupil. On and on, down into infinity.

Yes, the man and the egg are one, and he knows it. Yet he does not blink. Although the knowledge of what he is and what he is to become is horrifying, he cannot look away. Moments ago, he was the all-powerful decider of the egg’s fate. Now, he is only an egg himself.

The realisation frightens him. The music increases in urgency. The man’s eyes become glazed, paler, almost metallic. They become cloudy, as an egg frying in a pan might.

The egg stares back and now we hear a new sound – it is the sound of frying, but it is also wet, cavernous and discomforting. It is not clear where the sound is coming from, but we can guess. As we cut back and forth between man and egg, perhaps it is the sound of the Egg-Man, himself frying as he realises what he is, and what he is to become. He sees his future in the pan. He will not be fried and eaten, but the same thing will happen to him as happens to an egg: he will be broken, and changed irrevocably.

Suddenly, there is no man. Instead, there stands a chicken. Or rather, a man in a chicken mask. He is trapped, contained within a shell that is both authentic and laughably false. We see circles within circles within circles, and eggs within eggs within eggs. His eye stares out from behind the mask. Is this his real form, or is the mask simply a shell? And, we are left to wonder, is the shell not part of his overall form as the shell of an egg is?

The Egg-Man’s emotions are unclear, as his face is hidden behind the rubber mask. What little we see of his eye darts manically, but the mask betrays nothing. What is the Egg-Man’s fate? The musical intensity builds, but there is no discernible end point.

But abruptly, we cut. The Egg-Man sits on a sofa, eating what appears to be a fried egg sandwich. There is no sound, save for the buzz of the laptop he forgot to turn off before he started filming. He seems content, or, if not content, then at least calm. Was it all a dream? Was the existential horror of life as a metaphorical egg just a passing phase? We are given a brief moment of serenity before getting our answer.

It seems not. For as he eats, and the world around him stays static and unchanging, there is a steadily rising roar. It is indefinable, horrifying and intriguing in equal measure; a building, irresistible force that cannot be escaped or postponed, only anticipated. Does the man know this? Has he accepted his fate? Or is he blissfully unaware that the cycle is set to begin again, like an endless loop of chickens and eggs?

At what point will he break the cycle? Can he break the cycle at all, or is he trapped like an egg is trapped in its own shell?

We do not get an answer. Before the ambiguous horror can reach its crescendo, we cut to black. I fully believe it was the filmmaker’s intent for the film to be played on loop, a clear indication that the inescapable cycle will continue.

Where does the egg end and the man begin? Will we be reborn in the fridge only to be broken and fried again and again and again? Will the man ever finish his sandwich?

Perhaps we shall never know. Perhaps it is better that way.

Egg is available to watch here.