TOW 3: Serial Experiments Lain: Weird (visual)

Serial Experiments Lain is a sci-fi TV show from the late 1990's. It is regarded for its artful direction. ambitious atmosphere, and a plot that is up for any sort of interpretation. It was produced by the now defunct Triangle Staff and directed by Ryutaro Nakamura, who has worked on over 29 different major projects over his career. This is the first episode of the series, so its purpose is to mainly set the scene and mood for the rest of the show. Considering that the first scene is the suicide of a middle-school aged girl, the audience is presumably a more mature group. Lain was produced in the era when Macintosh computers were just beginning to take over the world with their sleek, smooth designs, and their advanced capabilities. Lain focuses on that technological rush of the time, making the internet one of its main topics. As I mentioned earlier, the show begins with the suicide of a middle school girl. Shortly after this exposition, her classmates begin recieving emails from the girl who just committed suicide, saying that she left the corporeal world to become more present in The Wired, a construct that seems to be very similar to the then growing internet. It sets a dark, technological pretense over the episode, and gives the impression that the rest of the show is going to be this way. In scenes where Lain is traveling to and from school, be it by walking or on a train, there is always a faint electrical humming noise in the background, and power lines and cables are almost always overhead, adding to the technological theme of the show. The music in the show is very conservatively placed, and if there is music playing, it is very faint and ambient. Just like the music, dialogue and speech is kept to a very low threshold, usually being quiet and austere. All of the shadows in the show have a shifting red and black effect to them, as if to say that the shadows could be concealing anything. Many scenes involve several different angles of a room, following the same event in relatively quick succession, a direction choice by Nakamura that truly fleshes out the atmosphere of every scene. Very little plot advancement occurs in this episode, aside from Lain deciding to explore the idea of getting a computer and exploring the Wired that her dead classsmate spoke of. Instead, it uses its time to layer a dark, spacey environment in which every element is open for interpretation. Weird sets a great tone for the rest of Serial Experiments Lain.