Leanne is first in line on Saturday, standing outside the 19th-century Memorial Uniting Church in Hobart, Tasmania. She\u2019s been waiting in the winter cold since 4.45am, but has no idea what for: \u201cIt\u2019s a film?\u201d<\/p>\n
The Guardian\u2019s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.\u00a0Learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n The film is Sculpt: Eye of the Duck, starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Rampling<\/a> \u2013 and only one person gets to watch it at a time. Its director, the French conceptual artist Loris Gr\u00e9aud, has cut six versions since its 2016 premier at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; less than 500 people saw that first film at Lacma and even fewer have seen the subsequent edits, although you can dig up some clips on the dark web. Dark Mofo \u2013 Hobart\u2019s winter festival \u2013 is now screening its seventh iteration, with nine tickets made available each day. Only 90 people will get a chance to watch the movie, and the act of seeing it is part of the show.<\/p>\n I wait at a red park bench. A silent, black-suited driver steps out of a black BMW. He hands me a metal military dog tag engraved with the film\u2019s title, and a red business card: \u201cPlease fasten your seatbelt,\u201d it reads. \u201cFor your safety this car is fitted with a camera.\u201d<\/p>\n The film \u2013 which we\u2019ll get to \u2013 is set within a type of stock market trading in \u201cmoments\u201d of pure emotion and raw intensity; moments made valuable by their unattainability. My car snakes between Queens Domain\u2019s bare trees as, over the speakers, Dafoe\u2019s voice recounts a murder we can assume will be part of the plot. There\u2019s a synergy with Dark Mofo itself, a festival that often trades in trials of the flesh and one-off experiences<\/a> \u2013 and the film, and its unattainability, is designed as both a product and subversion of art world consumer capitalism.<\/p>\n A phone starts ringing on the passenger seat; I answer it, but the voice is too faint to hear. The movie\u2019s world is merging with my own and the mind games have begun.<\/p>\n My car pulls up to the Playhouse Theatre. A severe-looking porter peering through the red drapes inspects my dog tag. Entry is granted to the almost pitch black empty theatre. Its chairs are piled up in a chaos of upholstery. The bellhop pours me a viscous cocktail garnished with secretions from a glass eye dropper. I take my spotlit red velvet seat and the film begins.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Even having read the synopsis, the art market plot is essentially inscrutable. Instead, we\u2019re offered a montage of surreal decadence that\u2019s exquisitely, bizarrely, distressingly beautiful and disorienting in equal measure. What unfolds on screen goes beyond a fever dream; it\u2019s more like a telepathic inferno extending beyond the screen\u2019s frame, with Gr\u00e9aud the arsonist combusting my psyche.<\/p>\n Dafoe\u2019s character cackles with sadistic wonder at women held aloft in a shibari ritual. The Japanese erotic knot tying tradition is a trust exercise, but the scene depicts something that feels cruel and dangerous. \u201cThe marriage of reason and nightmares gives birth to a world that\u2019s even more ambiguous,\u201d mutters Charlotte Rampling, dressed in a ghostly \u201cgrumpy bear\u201d costume<\/a>, barely audible over the soundtrack.<\/p>\n A voodoo priestess places an incantation on 16mm film rolls, which were later used in the making of more of the film. An old man deposits fly larvae on film strips with an eye dropper that makes me question my cocktail\u2019s ingredients. Describing this movie feels like tearing strips from a precious tapestry.<\/p>\n When it ends, the exit is lit up by a spotlight. I walk into the street discombobulated, and a woman places a USB drive into my hand. I turn in circles, stupefied and unsure if the experience has finished. I follow the USB courier down an lane-way; she sees me, doubles back and scurries through the Playhouse\u2019s green stage door. I ring the bell and wait. The expressionless porter opens the door, stares at me, then closes it in my face. I suspect I\u2019ve gone rogue here; they didn\u2019t expect me to chase the performer.<\/p>\n French artist Loris Gr\u00e9aud poses in front of his work Physarum (2023) at Petit Palais. Photograph: Luc Castel\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The day before my screening, I spoke to Gr\u00e9aud, who explained that the film explored \u201ca dichotomy between fiction and reality and how to make things from fiction crash into reality.\u201d The two, he believes, are indistinguishable and we need a new word: \u201cReal-iction\u201d. He tells me about the unlocked New Orleans voodoo temple in which that spell was placed on his film stock; about how $100 notes protruding from the walls were left untouched by the neighbourhood\u2019s resident drug addicts, seemingly through some mystical protection. He\u2019s a true believer in the spirit world: \u201cI can\u2019t talk about it because it brings some bad luck each time. It\u2019s not a superstition. I experienced something with my older brother and little sister.\u201d<\/p>\n Gr\u00e9aud was unwell on the day of our interview, and left to get a CT scan before his flight. But the next day, at my screening, I watched a man who could be a younger Gr\u00e9aud undergo his own CT scan. Was the artist\u2019s alleged appointment yet another layer in Gr\u00e9aud\u2019s \u201creal-iction\u201d? Leanne, first in line on Saturday, also found herself questioning when the experience began or ended; after her screening, she tells me about her own BMW ride \u2013 and the man who tried to get into the car with her. She thought it was part of the performance, but it was just a wasted bloke still up from the night before.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like I had been wrung out,\u201d Leanne says. \u201cAs a woman, being picked up by a stranger and being driven around then being placed in a cinema by yourself \u2013 it made you feel like you were handing over control, very vulnerable. I felt like I was being watched the whole time.\u201d Still, she says, her experience was positive.<\/p>\n After the screening, later that night, my phone rings and it\u2019s a pre-recorded voice of Dafoe: \u201cIt\u2019s time to open the window, let the wind carry me away. I will be a disciplined speck of dust.\u201d The hotel window doesn\u2019t open and the mysterious USB stick is staring back at me from its zip-lock bag. What it contains is just for me.<\/p>\n