SYNOPSIS
After a conspiracy theory-believing father suddenly passes away, his daughter inherits the patent for an experimental healing device he devised. The film draws on archival footage of actual actress Callie Hernandez's deceased father to portray the process of grieving a parent. Simultaneously, the filmmaking itself becomes part of the complex emotional grieving process.
REVIEW
Invention begins with the death of American actress Callie Hernandez’s father, setting in motion a maze of probate procedures and funeral rituals. Among his possessions is a patent for an electromagnetic therapy device—a strange, glass-tubed, humming machine purported to cure illness after just ten minutes of exposure. In reality, Hernandez’s father was a doctor who built medical devices, and archival footage of his television appearances is interwoven with the film’s narrative.
The story, however, is a fictionalization of Hernandez’s experience, with Callie appearing as her on-screen avatar, “Carrie.” The invention becomes a narrative thread linking Carrie to her father’s old acquaintances: lawyers, patients, investors, and men in an antique shop.
Director Courtney Stephens’ great strength lies in an elegant restraint; shot on grainy, vintage 16mm, the film takes on the rich patina of a period piece. At times, the artifice of filmmaking is deliberately laid bare, as ambient sound from the set seeps into the soundtrack and we hear the director and crew conferring about the next shot. Refusing easy categorization, Invention emerges as a reflective, meta-fictional drama about cultural memory, feminine mythmaking, and the elusive figure of the “author.”
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
Having studied medical anthropology, I’m interested in the shape of knowledge and belief systems, and also in how we participate in the belief systems and fantasy lives of those we love; how that participation is sometimes even a condition of love. Does entering other people’s fictions come at some peril to ourselves? The film also hints at the attrition of a certain kind of national fiction – suggesting how America itself is becoming more and more fantasmatic.
