Art and youth create unshakable bonds I saw the glow of the TV, director Jane Sonbrunn's brooding and claustrophobic documentary about the suburban alien. Schoenbrun has spoken in interviews about how, as a child, they chose to process their identity through fiction rather than “actually look in the mirror and figure out who I was.” With I saw the glow of the TV, put a surreal spin on the way beloved cultural objects give us an outlet for hard-to-express emotions. At the heart of the film – the director's first after the famous lonely Internet horror We're all going to the World's Fair— are two teenage characters obsessed with its mysteries and myths Pink Opaque, a weekly half-hour monster-of-the-week TV show in its terrifying vein Buffy the Vampire Slayer the The X-Files. By watching the show, the characters find an outlet for their feelings of isolation – and as the border between their physical existence and the world of Pink Opaque melt away, eventually wondering if their memories of the series might be truer than reality.
The soundtrack seems designed to evoke equally intense reactions from its listeners. Plus a fantastic score from Alex G—who returns after work We're all going to the World's Fair—the film features a strong collection of original songs from artists who inspire a feverish fandom, not unlike the characters' obsession with Pink Opaque. Collecting tracks from silent singer-songwriters (Florist, Maria BC), indifferent indie-rock artists (Bartees Strange, Jay Som) and strange pop songs (Caroline Polachek, yeule), it feels moody and disillusioned, surely a recipe for cult following—like a A CD-R with a tracklist written in Sharpie was passed by a group of friends amid reverent whispers.
The film is rooted in the imagery and cultural experimentation of the 1990s—the characters are muses for Evan Dando and Michael Stipe's appearance, and posters for Sarah Records are pinned to their walls. And even though the soundtrack is full of artists from the 2020s, most of them reach for sounds reminiscent of the end of the 20th century. Jay Som's “If I Could” is lit up by a shimmering guitar riff that hits so hard Bandwagonesque. Sadurn's slide-guitar “How Can I Get Out?” it plays like a hazy memory of the milder songwriters in '90s Drag City. Even Polachek ditches her sleek synth-pop distortions in favor of the shoegaze anthem on “Starburned and Unkissed.” While the references are clear, the songs never feel too reverent – they're often laid-back and purposefully otherworldly, as if heard in the depths of a dream.
This approach is most clear on Yeule's cover of Broken Social Scene's 'Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl'. On the surface, it's a bleak trailercore cover of a song that's long been an unofficial anthem for teenage outcasts—a particularly selective choice to kick off a movie about teenage alienation. But beneath the surface of the heavy-lid track is something strange: a distant, glitch-ridden memory of the original, with vocals that slide and swirl around the meditative backing track. Where the Broken Social Scene recording is rhythmically locked and mantra-like, Yeule's version is distant and disjointed, a long-dormant memory of adolescence. The soundtrack's most sweeping emotional gesture, Yeule's song also offers the most vivid depiction of the film's enjoyment of bending linear time. Both I saw the glow of the TV and its soundtrack begins in ways that feel familiar and nostalgic before plunging back into the shadows, making fond youthful memories unrecognizably strange.
