I must admit that HBO’s imagine concept was really interesting to watch because it was executed very well. Watching the short clip titled “the affair” from the four different angles really opened up the story in a way that would not have been originally seen, had there only been one angle, without expanding the clip. Yet, at the same time by giving you ‘all’ of the story at once you are not really saving any time either because in order to fully get the entire effect of the story you also have to re-watch the clip many times from each side of the cube.
“The Affair” sort of reminded me of Façade, in that we are immediately taken into the living room of this couple that is obviously having marital problems. At first we are unsure of what is going on, however as time elapses we soon realize the depths of the issues that lay underneath. Like Façade, “The Affair” starts and ends with the same outcome, when watching from different angles the middle details get filled in, but the ending is still the same. This is exactly like Façade, in that you can vary the conversation and interactions you have with the couple, but the outcome will always be that you get kicked out of their apartment in the end.
In my mind “The Affair” is like a cross between Façade and the film Memento. If you treat the entire experience as a series of different clips that are independent entities, it is clear that the format of “The Affair” is very similar to the format of Memento as well. Just by viewing one clip we are not able to put together the pieces of the puzzle, however after watching all four we can begin to construct a story of what really happened. Similarly, even after watching all of the story from all of the angles the audience is also left to make significant assumptions and guesses about what really happened as the many details of the story are left vague and incomplete, no doubt to encourage users to watch again and enquire more about the story online through message boards. All and all I really enjoyed the formatting of “The Affair” and thought that it was a creative way to tell a story using a format that is not commonly seen.