Birney, Albert

A taxman lives in a future world that evokes the disarray of dream logic in this creative and surreal sci-fi movie.“Strawberry Mansion,” a soulful sci-fi oddity from Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley, is a dollhouse constructed on a fault line. Birney and Audley, who both directed and edited the film, evoke the disarray of dream logic: The sets shift, the sound effects heighten and the props grow and shrink. Initially, the style is stifling, giving the sense that the wallpaper might matter more than the plot. One room is painted solid pink, with matching pink house plants and a pink broom. Another room houses a machine covered in incomprehensible widgets and tubes, plus a turtle named Sugar Baby. But oh, how the two filmmakers enjoy knocking down the walls of their own creation. This is a movie about letting the mind roam.The setting is 2035. James Preble (Audley), an unsmiling bureaucrat played with the gentle flatness of worn shoe leather, wakes up to start his dreary job as a dream auditor. In this near future, there’s a 52-cent charge for imagining a hot-air balloon, he notes in his report on an older artist, Bella Isadora (Penny Fuller), who hasn’t paid taxes in years. Bella’s recorded subconscious, accessible through the many virtual reality tapes stacked around her home, stars her younger self, an exaggerated romantic (Grace Glowicki) who frolics with caterpillars and smiles when she sees her father’s friendly stop-motion skeleton dancing on his grave. By contrast, the only joy in Preble’s miserable, monochromatic dreams is when his fantasy friend (Linas Phillips) appears with a bucket of fried chicken.The story arc is obvious: Entering Bella’s brain will awaken Preble’s own. What’s startling is Audley and Birney’s playful, handmade ingenuity. To fully describe it would spoil the surprises. (As a teaser, one 15-second gag involves Preble and Bella transforming into beets.) Suffice it to say that the filmmakers’ reveries are so meticulously designed that the audience trusts their steady vision even when Birney, in a cameo, shows up as a saxophone-playing frog.Strawberry MansionNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. Now in theaters, on demand beginning Feb. 25. More