The Messiah Complex. VAULT Festival.

A culture which bans beliefs that cannot be scientifically proven might not sound like the worst imaginable dystopia. It is tempting to think that living without internet conspiracy theories or the extremes of religious zealotry might be a tolerable exchange for the absence of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. But think it through a little, which is what the chilling psychological thriller The Messiah Complex does, and the prospect is bleak indeed. In this Orwellian world Tolkien, JK Rowling, and even Socrates are banned. The act of invention, even of dreaming inappropriately, brings down the wrath of the sinister and malign Authority.

At the behest of a mystic guru-like figure called Adam, the theocratic mirror image of the Authority, young rebel Sethian (Anthony Cozens) and his paranoid, hyper-religious girlfriend Sophia (Ak Golding) set out to “spread sacred knowledge like a web in the night”.  They rescue what books they can from the burning embers of the libraries and sell them on, enriching the enigmatic Adam in the process.

But the couple, led by the philandering Sophie, soon conclude that hawking well-thumbed copies of Harry Potter is not enough of a blood sacrifice for the cause. Something more is required. After his inevitable arrest, the grim reasons for which only become apparent late on, Sethian comes face-to-face with a smiling Authority adversary. The Nurse (a riveting turn by Sasha Clarke) is tasked with ridding the rebel of his “unhealthy habits” of belief.

Imprisoned in a hospital ward Sethian, who is a kind of everyman figure here, is squeezed between the religious fanaticism of the ethereal Sophie and the equally dogmatic presence of the science-bound Nurse. Can he find a way of reconciling two worldviews while retaining a semblance of sanity? And without the freedom to hold on to his core beliefs and values, what will become of him? As King Lear would have it, that way madness lies.

Cozens is tremendous as the jittery and indecisive Sethian, whose tenuous link with reality soon collapses under the weight of other people’s irreconcilable principles. Golding brings out Sophie’s darkly persuasive blood-obsessed foolishness with unsettling charm.

The Messiah Complex has much to say about the doom loop that results from the failure of those with spiritual beliefs, and those without, to listen to each other. The despairingly surreal feeling of characters trapped in a world that makes no sense brings Beckett to mind. If there is something lacking here, it is any hint of an answer as to how science and faith can ever really be reconciled. It is sad, sombre, and often very well written, but The Messiah Complex poses questions it fails to answer.

Writers and Directors: Alexander Knott, James Demaine, Ryan Hutton