What if your eyes functioned like a remote controller? The strange and wonderful Before Your Eyes (available on VR, smartphones and computers) takes a novel approach to storytelling, writes Luke Buckmaster.
The title “Before Your Eyes” derives from that familiar turn of phrase, known to be uttered after near death experiences: “my life flashed before my eyes.” When we imagine this flashing we probably think of it as a series of memories taking the form of a rapid-fire montage—though some say time slows down during such an event. In the bittersweet and moving Before Your Eyes, developed by GoodbyeWorld Games and directed by Will Hellwarth, Oliver Lewin and Graham Parkes, the life that “flashes” before us is a string of cradle-to-grave vignettes with a cumulative runtime of around 90 minutes.
The tone oscillates between happy, sad, tranquil, dramatic. The life we inhabit is that of a man named Benjamin Brynn, who grows up in a peaceful beachside home, with an aspiring artist as a mother and a more laidback professor father.
There’s a core gimmick underlying the experience, which is steeped in motion picture storytelling but is certainly not a movie, and has interactive elements but is far from a conventional video game. Each scene lasts until you blink. After a short non-skippable period, a metronome appears in each every sequence to indicate that if you blink, the story will jump forward by an undisclosed period—perhaps five seconds, perhaps five years. Sometimes this jump is desired, when it’s clear the scenario we’re observing has run its course. Other times we don’t want to leave a particular moment, and, longing to remain there, find ourselves in a self-inflicted A Clockwork Orange stance—eyes bulging, delaying the inevitable.
Before Your Eyes launched in 2021 on smartphones and webcam-enabled computers but has found its true home in virtual reality, re-released this month for Sony’s new PSVR2 headset. VR imbues the experience with much more intimacy, and it indeed does unfold before our eyes—which are now positioned very close to the camera looking back at us. In VR the act of seeing takes on new totality: in a completely immersive 360 environment, we cannot look away. Not that the experience utilizes all those degrees: it’s one of those VR productions (like Book of Distance, Paper Birds, Gloomy Eyes and many others) that concentrates the observer’s attention by blackening out space around the focal area—a basic technique, born in theatre, clearly indicating where we should be looking.
The buzz around Before Your Eyes understandably focuses on its core novelty, but if the blinking gimmick were removed it would still be a satisfying, fully rounded experience. We begin on a boat, slowly moving across a surreal mist-covered expanse of water, a strange character dressed in a mustard cardigan and black skivvy addressing us. Looking like a kind of half-human half-wolf, he reminded me of how Puss in Boots: The Last Wish depicted Death—rendering old mate Grim Reaper as a bipedal whiskery wolf with a long snout.
This introductory sequence cleverly addresses our lack of ability to speak or interact, providing a narrative justification for technological limitations of the present era. “I’d ask for your name, but sadly you’ve got no mouth to speak with,” says the wolf-man. “Or hands to shake with, or nose to look down with.” But our peepers are still tickety-boo.
The cardie-wearing canine then points to a large tower looming in the background, where we’ll meet “the Gatekeeper, to be judged.” He tells us he’ll present our case to said Gatekeeper and recount our life story “from prow to stern.” If the Gatekeeper is impressed, we’ll join “her magnificent city”—which of course is another way of saying we’ll go to heaven, or a heaven equivalent. To become an expert on our life, to know our story backwards and forwards, Wolfy rewinds time, and he and us experience shared visions of it.
This is a novel structure, more out-of-time than out-of-body—the world absorbable only from Benjamin’s perspective. The rewind begins on a beach, during a pleasant day on the sand with mum; when we blink the sun is setting. Soon we’re playing with toys (which we do using our eyes), attending primary school, experimenting with photography and meeting our nextdoor neighbour: a young girl named Chloe. I won’t reveal much more about the story, which is a pleasure to experience, with well written characters, touching scenarios, and an emotional heft that creeps up on you.
Throughout the experience we never hear Benjamin speak. Hearing the voice of the character your embodying is common in virtual reality, dialogue spanning from memorable (the zinger-delivering protagonist in Arizona Sunshine) to mundane (the bland personality of Horizon Call of the Mountain‘s warrior hero) and everywhere in between (the titular character in Half-Life: Alyx). But no matter how good the dialogue is, it’s always an immersion breaker, crystallizing thoughts that aren’t our own into a voice that doesn’t belong to us either.
Not having a voice also poses plausibility issues, and changes the way drama is presented. For instance we absorb story information by listening to people talk, or by being talked to. Again, Before Your Eyes attempts to provide a narrative justification, with passing references to Benjamin being a very quiet individual. It’s not perfect but it helps.
A gentle spirit of innovation washes through the experience, the blinking element adding novelty but never at the expense of deeper value. When particular developments in the story take hold, well into the runtime, finessing plot threads established very early on, there were occasions when my eyes welled up. And not just because I spent so much time straining to keep the damn things open.
