As group of prospective employees waits in a nondescript training room, an attendant wheels in a boxy television on a trolley and sets the channel to “Video 2.” A grainy instructional film begins about “the unlimited possibilities of the quantum,” presented by someone wearing industrial rubber gloves and a face shield. She assures the audience that the high-speed cabling industry is completely safe. Welcome to the parallel world of Lapsis, which mirrors issues in the current workplace in strange and illuminating ways.
Written and directed by Noah Hutton, Lapsis recalls Primer in its low budget aesthetic and focus on the industrialization of science fiction concepts. However, the film has real world social issues very much in mind, and as a modern genre piece it has more in common with Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s Synchronic (which dealt with racial injustice in the past and present). Made before the pandemic and released in 2021, many of Lapsis' themes seem eerily prescient.
The film concerns Ray Tincelli (Dean Imperial), a chancer from Queens, who takes a gig as a “quantum cabler” to fund a medical treatment for his younger brother (Babe Howard). The job involves manually laying miles of fibre-optic cable through woodland to support the high-speed demands of the trading market. Ray joins a small army of “independent contractors” in the zone, dragging cable on rickety carts to silver cubes that thrum with magnetic energy.
One of the many fascinating aspects of Laspis is its subtle alternate reality. In many ways contemporary (or near futuristic in its promise of a quantum computing revolution), its world is filled with outdated technology such as flip phones, RCA cables and chunky computer monitors. This extends to the technology employed by the freelance cablers. At a “Quantum Expo” that recalls early David Cronenberg in its depiction of the low-rent fringes of innovation, Ray encounters camping gear retrofitted for cabling and cheesy infomercials promising big money.
In contrast, the technology and methods employed by CABLR (one of the film’s fictional companies) are state of the art. GPS and DNA tracking is used to monitor the cablers and their actions, while checkpoints and constant notifications are employed as incentives. Drones drop fresh cable to workers to ensure they keep moving and CABLR’s instructional videos are polished cartoons, re-framing work as a game. “Time to continue your adventure!” announces the perky voice on Ray’s GPS device at the end of every designated rest break. “Challenge the status quo!”
These elements highlight the gulf between worker and employer in Lapsis. Ray is required to buy his own gear and is offered no sick pay or compensation in a physically demanding and possibly dangerous job. Despite CABLR’s assurances, the humming cubes with the “strong magnetic field” warning signs are disconcerting. The situation calls to mind real world companies that have been legally challenged for arguing that workers are “independents” and providing no protections beyond the high-tech platform used to conduct business.
The specter of automation also raises its head, via the “cabling carts” that CABLR sets loose in the zone. These trundling robots compete with the humans to finish routes. They’re slow but inexorable, as they never tire or need to sleep. While it’s clear that CABLR would prefer not to deal with people at all, the complexity of the landscape means that cabling is not always possible for the machines. As a solution, the company pits human against robot in a race to complete jobs, driving the workers to push themselves ever harder.
Growing up around the zone is a plethora of secondary industry, comprising locals who provide food and camping gear to the cablers, homeowners who rent out their garages as equipment storage, and crooked dealers who trade cabling credentials in return for a cut of the profit. There’s even a gang of feral kids who go around setting traps for cablers to steal their gear. Lapsis is highly effective in building a whole world that mirrors the growth of capital, especially around the gig economy, as various parties feed off one another in the pursuit of a decent living.
Ray initially sees no issue, comparing this activity to the normal processes of the free market. He’s a working-class guy who previously made a living in the sanitation industry and believes in a system that rewards hard work, until he meets Anna (Madeline Wise). She clues Ray into the fact that the many cabling companies are in fact owned by single conglomerate and makes him question the lack of basic provisions offered to the workers. The irony that Anna is a writer who attacks the gig set-up whilst engaging in cabling for half the year isn’t lost, and is just another layer of complexity thrown into the mix.
Lapsis distinguishes itself as an oblique satire of the modern workplace and the dilemmas it presents. The expectation for the cablers to provide their own equipment and resources will strike a chord with anyone used to the benefits of remote working. CABLR’s promises about enhanced choice and the opportunity to make good money aren’t lies, but they come at a heavy price for those workers who fall by the wayside. The televised statements by its CEO make valid points about creating opportunities in areas where traditional industry has left, but it's clear that the biggest profits are being funneled through to a hidden monopoly. Ray ultimately gets involved in a union effort against the automation and lack of benefits, but there’s a sense it’s just a temporary victory. What he ultimately gains is human connection with his fellow workers, which the film suggests can abide if people are prepared to fight for it.
In a movie of big ideas, Dean Imperial is a standout as the down-to-earth Ray, calling to mind the intensity of James Gandolfini in his depiction of a working-class protagonist. Anna suggests he has “a 70s mobster vibe going on,” which Ray wryly acknowledges in the film. Ray’s devotion to his brother, who has a long-term fatigue syndrome called “Omnia” (prescient again), is never in question even though the medical treatment he’s paying for is clearly a high-priced scam.
Lapsis will resonate with anyone who has questioned where employment is going with the rise of the gig economy and automation of roles, especially during the last few years. Its natural setting calls to mind Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, another science fiction film where the participants travel through a strangely depopulated and sometimes beautiful zone in search of their hearts' desires. Lapsis’ concerns are more real world, however, making it an effective parable for our times.