It Is Lit

Christian Salmon’s non-fiction book Storytelling outlines the madness of the modern neoliberal business model: constantly disrupting itself and tearing down tradition, yet demanding the total emotional investment of each worker. These conditions have definitely been internalised by the Swedish employees in It is Lit and it shows in their confused, contradictory, even sociopathic behaviours. Especially in Johan, who fears every new move in the company and plots accordingly – while hearing phantom noises of long-ago building operations. He is motivated by the dream of owning a castle – but his fantasy is erected on quicksand.

Viktor Israel Strand’s black-and-white, low-budget, jump-cut heavy film shows the bleak, melancholic, nightmarish underside of satirical ‘office comedies’ like The Boss of It All (Lars von Trier, 2006). Here there is no physical office as such: as in an early Fassbinder movie, the characters meander, gather at forlorn outdoor sites and cower under the night sky. The fragmentation of the narrative mirrors the decentredness of contemporary working conditions. Eventually reality itself dissolves. Basic human interaction is, naturally enough, the first thing to suffer in this hellish regime: Johan keeps tentatively poking his companions to check if they are actually present. The Big Question: is Johan himself even present?

– Adrian Martin