Slamdance 2024: ‘The Bitcoin Car’ Review
A town sacrifices the environment they depend on in writer-director Trygve Luktvasslimo’s The Bitcoin Car - a deliriously off-beat depiction of the schism between technology and environmentalism. Through its use of music and vibrant colors, Luktvasslimo’s feature directorial debut confronts the morality of its characters with a joyful demeanor towards regretful decisions. At times exhausting and other times exhilarating, The Bitcoin Car is a singular vision of a world at a tipping point and the small selfish decisions that can have far-reaching consequences.
When Lukas (Henrik Paus) visits his home coastal village for the summer and stays with his sister, Gloria (Sunniva Birkeland Johansen), everything seems to have changed from when he was last there. For starters, Gloria picks him up from the airport in a gold-plated Toyota, which seems to be the common element throughout the town as everyone has bedazzled items like sunglasses and teacups, to name a few. However, most notable of all is the gold-plated bitcoin mining facility situated beside the church and on top of the graveyard where Lukas and Gloria’s parents were buried. While this would seem blasphemous enough not to be permitted, all of the villagers took a generous payout from the company behind the bitcoin mine - which was funded by a wealthy billionaire teenager who figured out how the blockchain works at an early age - and agreed to look the other way.
Mirroring the obliviousness to the ramifications that the mine would have on the environment, Gloria took the payout and began operating an organic farm. Breaking out in song with a recurring reference to a bitcoin mine not really being like a mine (it’s not underground, nor does it have tunnels or shafts), there’s a naiveté to Gloria’s actions that she seems to be able to ignore until Lukas comes home and questions many of the decisions made in the village. The tone of the film rarely lets up from being this distillation of life being joyful for all involved in the payout, but Lukas’s questions begin cracking the facade and the real-world consequences that were ignored from the beginning (characters make note of the environmental impact of a bitcoin mining facility early on) become harder to turn away from.
Unfortunately, while the musical numbers are always amusing in the moment, they don’t really have much lasting appeal. Visually, Luktvasslimo tries to inject more comedy through absurdity (a Finnish man playing accordion in a hot tub while electrons sing around him, for example), and while it never feels like it’s trying too hard, it does often overstay its welcome. Even at 94 minutes, The Bitcoin Car tends to stall and drag out its narrative without much emphasis on character development during that downtime. It kind of sits in one gear for a bit too long, and takes a while before it really confronts the issue at hand. Once it does, it’s a fever dream of sugary colors and weird situations spurred on by the unique circumstances surrounding the bitcoin facility.
It’s the familial relationship between Lukas and Gloria that keeps The Bitcoin Car grounded when it so desperately seems to want to go off the rails. That sibling bond instills an endearing quality to the entire film, bolstered by the jubilant tone that seems to infect the entire village despite a gaudy monolith erected beside the quaint church. There’s a spiritually rewarding quality to Gloria’s organic farm or any endeavor that seeks to ground an individual. That fact is emphasized in the juxtaposition of a religious structure next to a production facility that keeps everything inside and harms everything outside. There’s an awareness that the film brings through its playfulness of tone and setting that is underscored by Lukas’s subtle interrogations of Gloria’s decisions as they relate to her morality. No conversation is off-limits, but it’s also not going to get in the way of their camaraderie with each other.
While it may sometimes feel like The Bitcoin Car is just being absurd for absurdity’s sake, it invites the audience to question its cheerfulness through clever implementation of setting and morality. It’s humorous to see a giant eyesore in the middle of a coastal town, and even funnier when everyone seems happy it’s there - but sometimes it feels like Luktvasslimo isn’t confident enough in the messaging of the film that it sometimes has to rely on the humor, to the theme’s detriment. By the time a resolution is found to the town’s sticky situation, it feels rushed and doesn’t really land as effectively as it should. An entertaining adventure filled with just enough quirk to sustain itself while evoking a response from viewers, The Bitcoin Car’s playful attitude leaves its environmental message slightly too muddled to leave an impact.
The 2024 edition of the Slamdance Film Festival marks the 30th anniversary of the festival, taking place between January 19th and 28th.
