“Michael’s Resignation” is just the first episode from a series of 7 modern-day film parables collectively titled “Multivalence” written by Alex Cameron in 2008 and set in the UK around the 21st century recession, or so-called “credit crunch”. We follow 6 central characters and their powerful and highly-dramatic life-changing experiences, with the last (7th) film connecting them all together into a “bigger picture”.
The series is designed as a unique platform for undiscovered young talent and features:
- A script written collaboratively online by a group of young screenwriters;
- Characters played by young unknown actors and actresses;
- A bustling soundtrack composed of unsigned bands;
- Investment drawn from opening up the movie financing to ordinary people;
The concept of multivalency (a synonym for polyvalent) denotes something which has many values, meanings, or appeals, and is related to polysemy (the ability of a word, sign or symbol to have multiple meanings). The metaphoric origin of valence is derived from the definition of valency in chemistry (i.e. a measure of the number of chemical bonds formed by the atoms of a given element) but by metaphoric attribution, may now connote a “subtle, polyvalent allegory”.
In biology, it signifies the ability of an antibody or array of antibodies to bind to several antigen determinants at the same time, which increases the strength of binding between the antibody and its target. A multivalent vaccine can vaccinate a person against more than one strain of a disease, and polyvalent venins are effective against a range of species, or several different species at the same time.
So, in essence, “Multivalence” is a series of 7 parables with multiple meanings, values and appeals.
Each film explores the idea of meaning, value and purpose in 21st century life –more specifically, what happens when our personal sense of them collapses. The “credit crunch” has forced many people to re-consider what is important after the implosion of borrowing and consumerism. Each story revolves around a central character that has created a life from false or superficial meaning, and then studies what happens when it is collapses or is torn down by a catalysing event.
The 7 stories are:
1. Michael’s Resignation
A traumatised ex-soldier who has begun a new life in the city as an office clerk breaks down after being made redundant as a victim of the “credit crunch” and finding his fiancé having an affair with his boss. Determined to exact revenge, he suffers a nervous breakdown and films himself ruthlessly slaughtering all his co- workers before being shot down by armed police officers in a final blaze of glory.
2. Salvation For April
A self-obsessed fashionista who finally loses the Covent Garden styling boutique she has been using to fund her lavish lifestyle because of the “credit crunch” tries to kill herself and is unexpectedly rescued by the tramp she ab uses every day. After waking up in hospital and learning he is gravely ill, she embarks on a desperate race across London to find him and save his life in return, and in doing so, sets off a chain reaction of events that forever changes the lives of everyone around her.
3. Aidan’s Darkest Sermon
A self-righteous judgemental middle class pastor who is told that his church- owned home is to be sold before the housing market suffers from the “credit crunch” loses control after falling off the wagon and drunkenly rapes a local prostitute whom he despises in a fit of rage. After she tries to blackmail him, his true murderous nature emerges as he finds a new chaotic way to preach his beliefs. A deadly game of cat and mouse begins as he tries to cover his tracks before the most consequential Sunday sermon of his life.
4. Forsaking Grace
Under the threat of her department being shut down because of a chronic lack of government funding due to the “credit crunch”, a heartbroken loner forensic biologist hailed for her theories demonstrating love, attraction and emotion are just useless by-products of evolution is forced to confront her past when the love of her life who abandoned her turns up out of the blue on her doorstep the very same day as her boyfriend proposes to her, forcing her to re-think everything she knows as her ordered life is turned upside down.
5. Empire of Ash
Distraught with grief and desperate for vengeance, the workaholic owner of a chain of debt collection agencies booming from the surge in repayment problems due to the “credit crunch” orchestrates a mass execution of a local gang after his grandmother is killed in one of their botched hits. As he struggles to control the uncontrollable ripple effects of his campaign of violence, he is unwittingly thrust into a dark and twisted game of human chess played by wealthy evil men.
6. Rescued Violet
Whilst trying to convince her drug-addicted aristocrat boyfriend to invest his inherited wealth into helping those less fortunate than himself during the “credit crunch”, a rescue-holic abortion clinic nurse obsessed with saving others struggles to cope after finding out he is actually the father of a child being terminated by a vulnerable girl she has befriended at work. Only when she lets go of saving others is she saved by the man who has loved her from the very beginning – not only from a lethal car accident, but from herself.
7. The Big Picture
Deliberately withheld.
Each film looks at how the main character reacts to losing the sense of meaning they have developed and/or adopted in extremely dramatic circumstances.
For instance, Michael derived meaning from duty: the army, marriage, the City; for April it was fashion, celebrity and the party crowd; Aidan found it in alcohol, religion and institutions; Grace resolved her grief to science; Ash’s workaholic focus was on building a business empire; and lastly Catherine based her whole existence on rescuing others. Some of the characters’ lives are changed for the better (e.g. April), but some react incredibly violently (for example, Michael’s violence towards his co-workers).
Each film is multivalent, but the series as a whole is also multivalent. Its complexity was more coincidental than by design, as if you start to wax lyrical about your creation in esoteric terms you just sound pretentious. The simple idea was to write a few stories based around how people’s lives were changing because of the credit crunch. Those stories have captured people’s imaginations and have many different layers and interpretations from each person who reads them.
But the truth is they were just a set of stories. One movie vaccinates against more than one strain of social disease, and is effective against a range of human species. Movies themselves have a meaning, and these parables serve to understanding meaning itself.
