The Stimming Pool (2024)

The first ten minutes of this documentary don’t really comes across as anything too different. We meet two gents who run a sci-fi film club at their local cinema in Hastings talking about the the relative merits - well demerits, really, of schlock. We get some clues from their language that one of the two is neurodiverse. Their introduction showcases a few further vignettes from others whose appreciation of things artistic (and scientific) might vary from those of the bulk of the population, and the six directors offer us a compendium of projects that challenge the standard way of film creation and production. As we get deeper into this experimental feature, we discover that they are all working together as they create their “Stimming Pool” concept, or really a series of concepts, that don’t really have much to do with each other. It works, up to a point, and the characters are genuinely interesting to follow but the lack of cohesion makes it struggle as a joined-up piece of cinema. Each feature in itself makes for a watchable enough short film, but when we put them altogether it becomes quite disjointed. That’s not to say that it misses it’s mark - it does open eyes to different perceptions of what might be considered “standard”, but the assembly style of storytelling darts about too often without contextualising enough for those watching to learn or understand rather than associate with. Still, it’s worth a watch and is at times quite thought-provoking.