Any form of artistic creation is an inherently immersive and sacrificial act. Particularly when creating something wholly new, we must dig deep to find the seeds of the world within ourselves and bring to light some dark and squirming realities we may not have faced before. To create is to bleed on the page, and doing so effectively means not shying away from the monsters.
There have been many films that explore the divide and immersion of an artist’s life, and the dangers of the blurred lines between fantasy and reality. But it has been some time since I’ve seen one that feels as harrowing as ALL ALONE TOGETHER, which played at the 2024 Panic Film Festival. The lines between what’s real and what’s projection are almost immediately blurred, and we are thrust into a world of several layers where we cannot trust any of our senses.
ALL ALONE TOGETHER follows a young filmmaker who finds a surprising amount of success following a screening at a film festival. Thrust into a world of promotion and development he feels wholly unprepared for, Lincoln Arreto (Alex Nimrod) is suddenly faced with an onslaught of people begging for his time and asking questions about his work he doesn’t seem to know how to answer, but hungry for others’ interpretation.
The pressure to answer things about your life and work, and their relationship, to put yourself not just on display but under a microscope for inspection and critique is one of the most unsettling parts of being a creator, and ALL ALONE TOGETHER lives and breathes in that horror. Once you’ve brought your work out into the world, it’s no longer your own. And you’re expected to produce more of it that’s just as good or better, or risk falling into unending criticism of your own life and worth.
This seems to be where some of Lincoln’s greatest anxiety comes from, and the signs that his grasp is not altogether tight start out small but, if you look, are near immediate. We recognize that we can’t trust him almost before he questions himself. It soon dissolves into a world in which neither the viewer nor lead’s footing is entirely solid, which effectively keeps up the tension the whole film through. Alex Nimrod’s performance as Lincoln is incredibly engaging. He’s impossible to look away from in even the most uncomfortable moments and carries the emotional weight of the film remarkably well.
The most technical standout is the sound design, developed by Jordan Aldinger, Renata Finamore, and Grace Gentile, which becomes a character in itself as the film goes on and we find ourselves plunged deeper into Lincoln’s fracturing psyche as he feels the constant eyes of everyone he’s ever interacted with breathing down his neck for information about his next big writing project that’ll be even greater than his breakout hit. The way Lincoln interacts specifically with the sights and sounds around him create a truly terrifying portrait of a man who is clearly in a losing battle with his connection to reality.
Part meta critique on the hungry beast that is the creative world, part personal study, ALL ALONE TOGETHER is one of the tensest films Panic Fest had to offer. While the ending didn’t quite stick for me, much of the rest was such a terrible, sensitive portrait of what it means to no longer trust anything around you, even your own sense of self. What are you willing to sacrifice if it means reassurance that your own senses are holding true?
Tags: Alex Nimrod, All Alone Together, Film Festivals, Grace Gentile, Jordan Aldinger, Panic Fest, Panic Fest 2024, Renata Finamore
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