Back in February, we gave you a chance to watch the first 12 minutes of Sound of My Voice, an indie thriller from writer/director Zal Batmanglij about two filmmakers investigating a religious cult. Like that first 12 minutes, this new trailer looks really promising, and I’m wondering what moral compromises will befall our hapless filmmaking duo.
On IMDb, it looks like Batmanglij’s next film, The East, has a similar vibe: a contractor played by Brit Marling (the messianic cult figure of Sound of My Voice) is sent to infiltrate an anarchist organization led by Alexander Skarsgård. The film also stars Ellen Page.
I was actually thinking about tight-knit ideological groups last night — like religious cults or radical political organizations — in that oddly preoccupied way I do just before sleep (i.e., intellectual paddle ball). They provide some sense of family for people who feel abandoned, and some kind of purpose for those who don’t feel tethered to something meaningful in life. So I’m a bit surprised we don’t hear about more of these groups these days given that so many people feel helplessly alone and absolutely powerless. And then a couple minutes later, I fell asleep.
