Filmmaking becomes a way to process grief for the death of an unconventional and controversial parent in Invention, a droll and intriguing docufiction blend of found footage clips and collaborative improvisation that screened in the Cineasti del Presente competition for bold new voices at the Locarno Film Festival. Los Angeles-based filmmaker Courtney Stephens explored the political resonance of artefacts in The American Sector, her well-regarded 2021 debut feature-length documentary, co-directed with Pacho Velez. Invention also expands its significance well beyond the personal, to capture a national climate in which the illusion of the American Dream has faded into a chaotic, paranoid landscape of conspiracy theories, entrepreneurial cons and wellness gimmicks.
Callie Hernandez (who shares screenwriting credit with Stephens) stars as a woman navigating the recent death of her father, an inventor interested in the healing powers of electricity with a raft of business aliases and a checkered reputation for leaving investors in his gadgets out of pocket. His estate executor informs her that there will probably be no money left to inherit once all the claims against him are settled, but that he left her a trust containing a patent for an electromagnetic healing device, which is in legal limbo after being recalled by the FDA.
Callie has fond memories of her father’s sense of humour, but a degree of estrangement has left her with many doubts about how to process his legacy, and her complicated feelings about his passing. She sets off to visit a number of his business contacts, acolytes and acquaintances, from an associate who runs a sprawling antique store to a woman adamant he cured her of migraines, to find out whether they think the patented device might have a possibility of actually working. It’s a process of investigation that is more about coming to terms with who her father really was — unhinged fool, charlatan, or genius who understood that the human body is alive with electricity — than it is about determining whether the patent has any intrinsic monetary value. She sways between default sardonic skepticism and an attitude more open-minded and indulgent, tied to an urge to retain a connection to his life and faith in his intentions.
Archival television clips and home video footage stretching back to the ‘90s of Hernandez’s own late father enthusing about the benefits of an array of pseudoscientific gadgets and treatments for losing weight, curing insomnia, and promoting relaxation are spliced in, testament to the broad tradition of evangelising about wellness and miracle cures in the U.S. media, and anchoring the film’s surrealism within contemporary American realities and beliefs. The life trajectory of her father John, or Doctor J. as some call him, who was raised a Jehovah’s Witness but dabbled in Pentecostalism, qualified as a doctor, explored Chinese medicine and Reiki, and pushed laser products as part of a Utah pyramid scheme, suggests a society in which spiritual systems and consumerism have bled together, and citizens can shop around, switching between them in their ambitious quest to hit on a meaningful and lucrative self-made existence.
The electromagnetic healing prototype, a glowing contraption that sits in a red-walled attic, looks more like a strange icon than a scientific advancement, but, like visiting a grave, it becomes a tangible focus for Callie in her grief. Also lending to a sense of ritual, a candle burns in the frame whenever the film breaks with performance and the film crew can be heard in voiceover discussing the direction of their collaboration. Imagery of shimmering water, trees and wildlife add a psychedelic tinge, while electric organ harmonies and sonic landscapes from musical artists including Cate Kennan and Thomas E. Dimock add to an underlying ethereal wonkiness that draws us into sympathy with the weird side of the United States of America and its eccentric dreamers.
Director: Courtney Stephens
Screenwriters, Producers: Callie Hernandez, Courtney Stephens
Cinematographer: Rafael Palacio Illingworth
Cast: Callie Hernandez, Sahm McGlynn, Lucy Kaminsky, Tony Torn, James N. Kienitz Wilkins
Editing: Dounia Sichov, Courtney Stephens
Sound: Emile Klein
Music: Thomas E. Dimock, Sarah Davachi, Cate Kennan, Twig Harper
Production companies: Neurotica House, Jacket Weather
Venue: Locarno (Concorso Cineasti del Presente)
In English
72 minutes