Dave Made a Maze (2017)

August 18, 2017 8:31 PM

Dave, an artist who has yet to complete anything significant in his career, builds a fort in his living room out of pure frustration, only to wind up trapped by the fantastical pitfalls, booby traps, and critters of his own creation.
posted by Tabitha Someday (8 comments total)

I liked it. It was by no means perfect, but it met the my expectations that had been set by the trailer and clip I'd seen. If you aren't a fan of absurdity, you will probably want to skip this one.

The whole thing seemed intended as an allegory for the artistic process. When an artist completes her work, she kills it, because it's no longer growing or changing. Just because it's dead though, doesn't mean that it has no lasting affect on those it touched (or touches), including the artist.

But, more importantly, it was funny.
posted by Tabitha Someday at 8:42 PM on August 18, 2017

I was thinking about seeing this with a friend who might like it too, but she's been a bit funky lately and grumbling about feeling like a failed artist. Does the movie lean hard on the failed artist aspect? I don't want to see something that's just going to make her more depressed!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:07 AM on August 19, 2017

I'd say it focuses on a specific type of artistic failure, the inability to finish a project. That's one I'm all to familiar with, but I still enjoyed it.
posted by Tabitha Someday at 6:32 AM on August 19, 2017

Yes, it's quite funny and won't make anyone depressed. In some way it's an appartment-sized, but much less angsty version of Synecdoche, New York (which also features an artist unable to finish his labyrinthic creation and gets lost in it). It's short and inventive, and the cardboard/origami props are fantastic. It reminded me of early Terry Gilliam (Time Bandits for the minotaur scene for instance) or Michel Gondry (The Science of Sleep, also about a creator and featuring lots of animated cardboard props, and Mood indigo).
posted by elgilito at 8:13 AM on August 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

I hadn't heard of this one until this thread, so thanks! Totally my kind of thing. I mean, I may be an artist who never completes things out of a fear of failure, so I get Dave. And I dig dungeons and adventures and stuff, I'm pretty much this movie's perfect audience. And yeah, I loved it. LOL'ed a few times throughout, often at the effects.
posted by rodlymight at 6:34 PM on August 19, 2017

Saw this last night and enjoyed it. Some of the allegory / metaphor was pretty heavy handed but the whimsical set design was really delightful. Would never have heard about it without this thread, so thanks for that!
posted by Jugwine at 6:07 AM on August 23, 2017

A friend of mine recommended this a while back and I just noticed that it's on Prime, so I watched it. It was both weird and good. The set design was indeed delightful. Bonus points for having Adam Bush and James Urbaniak.
posted by rmd1023 at 4:50 PM on April 27, 2020

I'm clearly late to this party -- just watched it last night. It was such an inventive delight! I agree that the "this an allegory" aspect was a bit heavy-handed but what do you expect from a movie about a frustrated artist who builds a cardboard fort in the living room and gets lost in it because it's bigger on the inside than out? I'm not sure how to process the lives that were (allegedly) lost. In that way, I found the ending a bit muddled. Is the fact that the movie treated it as no big deal at the end part of the allegory or just the filmmakers keeping the mood light?

Quibbles aside, it was a super fun ride.
posted by treepour at 6:43 PM on September 13, 2020 [2 favorites]