Look Up
An allegory about surveillance and blissful ignorance.

Hey former kiddies: remember those words of wisdom adults impressed on you, so long ago?  You know, wise aphorisms like “Ignorance is Bliss?”  No matter how scary the world may seem at times, “What You Don’t Know Can’t Hurt You”… 

Right?

Okay, we all know that’s bullshit; on some level at least. But these days, many folks still operate on that principle – blocking out scary truths on the subconscious assumption that as long as you don’t say the “bad thing” out loud, everything will come out safe and fine.

One of those folks is protagonist Max in Carl Lunden’s “Look Up.”  A “shaggy adult dressed as a hip teenager”, Max whiles away life on his computer oogling NSFW “sexy pics” , and bopping to music on his all-too-expensive – and loud – headphones. Such pasttimes absorb Max’s bandwidth well. 

...until a disembodied “Narrator” voice intrudes with: “Hello”. 

A disembodied voice? Hmmmm. Maybe Max clicked the wrong link on his browser.? Or overdid his psychedlic gummies. Either way, no big. But the exchange which happens next is… well odd and disturbing, to say the least.

Max removes his headphones, spooked by the disembodied voice. Then, after a moment to process, he's fine with it.

MAX
Oh, hey there.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
Don't look up.

Max looks up.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
You looked up.
 
MAX
Oh, yeah, guess I did. Hah, sorry, guy.

NARRATOR (V.O.)
Hah. That's okay, Max. But don't do it again, okay?

MAX
You got it!

NARRATOR
Say, Max, could you use that computer
of yours to look up spiders for me?

SPIDERS?  Record scratch. Turns out, Spiders aren’t Max’s cup of tea. In fact, it’s a phobia he’s had for awhile.

But the friendly voice promises to explain spiders to him, in ways that will ally Max’s fears. As Max ambles to the kitchen to fix a snack, the Narrator muses amiably about fun spider FAQs. Like that though spiders are virtually in every nook and cranny on Earth, most of them are harmless. And if you don’t even see them much… who cares?

Though still creeped out a tiny bit, Max eventually agrees spiders aren’t worth obsessing about. “Out of sight, out of mind.” That’s another sophistry we all know and love.

And it works, until Max heads to the bathroom. Then the Narrator starts waxing poetic about way bigger spiders: ones which hang over everyone’s head. At that, the so-far gullible and inflappable Max scoffs. Whoever this Narrator is, he’s got to be pulling Max’s leg for a prank.

MAX
Hah, what bogus!

Flushing, Max walks out of the bathroom and…

...looks up. Sees nothing. 

MAX
If that was true, you'd totally see them – look.
No big spider here.
            
NARRATOR (V.O.)
Because it doesn't want to be seen.
It just wants to watch you.
            
MAX
...what?

Ok, now we’re getting into Naked Lunch meets The Big Lebowski territory – what started as a fun goof quickly turns into an existential, surreal game of Truth or Dare.

The still disembodied Narrator assures Max that as long as he doesn’t look up, all’s fine. But if he does – well, spiders have to protect themselves, right?

Will Max blow off this bizarro convo as a prank? Will he shut his eyes to the dangers…. Or look up. And if so, at what price?

As the logline hammers home, Look Up is “An allegory about surveillance and blissful ignorance.” Easily shot with a touch of post, Carl Lundén’s short blends dark satire with a humorous peek at one of our worse human foibiles: closing our eyes, screaming la-la-la… and hoping irrationally that everything will magically be all right.