Obselidia is a 2010 American roaddrama film written and directed by Diane Bell in her directorial debut. It stars Michael Piccirilli, Gaynor Howe, and Frank Hoyt Taylor. It tells the story of a lonely librarian who believes love is obsolete until a road trip to Death Valley with a beguiling cinema projectionist teaches him otherwise.
On his quest to catalogue soon obsolete occupations, George (Piccirilli) a librarian joins forces with a silent film projectionist (Howe), and together they journey to Death Valley to interview a maverick scientist (Hoyt Taylor) who is predicting the imminent end of the world.
Obselidia was loosely inspired by several films, with Diane Bell saying:
This movie is born from a deep love of movies, so there are literally thousands of inspirations. A few of the key touchstones: for the look of the film, Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas and François Truffaut's The Man Who Loved Women; for driving scenes on a low budget, the great B-movie, Gun Crazy; for cycling, Jules et Jim; for romance, Woody Allen's Annie Hall and Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise. For a go and do it attitude, John Carney's Once and Luc Moullet's Brigitte et Brigitte.[3]
Todd McCarthyofVariety stated, "Gentle, intelligent, gorgeously made and utterly eccentric, Obselidia exists in its own little world entirely apart from any hitherto detected categories of American independent filmmaking." McCarthy also wrote, "Visually, the picture is a thing of great beauty."[4] David D'Arcy of Screen Daily remarked, "Bell's ambitious script seeks a new and charmingly humorous perspective on consumerism and environmental decline, but leans on didactic aphorisms in the dialogue between George and Sophie."[5]
Valenti, JoAnn M. (2010). "Lights, Camera …Action? Are We Missing Data on Real Change From Environment in Films?". Applied Environmental Education & Communication. 9 (2): 75–77. doi:10.1080/1533015X.2010.482460.
