For the Plasma

For the Plasma begins in a remote house on the coast of Maine, where a young woman named Helen has found work as a forest-fire lookout responsible for monitoring the nearby woodland. While analyzing CCTV footage of the surrounding forest, she discovers that by reconfiguring her perception she can predict shifts in global financial markets. But when her inquisitive friend Charlie arrives at the house, Helen finds herself challenged by her new colleague, and the two girls' relationship begins to unravel. From this cryptic premise grows a lo-fi mind-bender of intimate scale and startling relevance, flirting with genre conventions even as it subverts them. To the strains of an electronic score by Keiichi Suzuki, For the Plasma juxtaposes pastoral imagery with surveillance technology, its every shade and shadow captured in gorgeous 16mm. (Factory 25)