In order to be released from his prison sentence, a “captive” pilots a one-person submarine to the pitch-black bottom of a sea oozing with blood and pressurised gas and exposes himself to dangerous levels of radiation and returns with information and a couple of samples. The “captive” apologises to the military commander of his mission for his crimes. “You can apologise to my tumours,” she replies, curtly. “Just get the sample.” But the commander is slippery when it comes to her part of the arrangement. “Then I’m free?” the “captive” asks. “Then you come back up,” she replies, ominously. “There is too much at stake not to take calculated risks.”
Simon, the captive in “Iron Lung” (Markiplier Studios), showing now at the Montrose Playhouse, is the only character we actually see and is played by Mark Fischbach, an actor also known as Markiplier. Simon is broad-shouldered, wears a hoodie, sweat band, and bangles, his long curly hair is trussed in a tight knot on the back of his head, and—except for needing a fingernail brush—would not be out of place as a barista in the kind of coffee shop that roasts its own beans. “They don’t want you to return,” the British leader of a trapped group known as the “Keepers of Eden” says, referring to the military. “Even if they keep their promise,” she goes on, “what does freedom mean to you? Hope in this world is as illusory as the starlight.” As the intensity of the action crescendoes, both the military commander and the trapped British woman (“please get us out”) talk over each other, imploring Simon go see things their way. This confused, non-linear dialog, accompanied by a more urgently pulsing, organised soundtrack, is very effective in creating ambiguity for the cinema audience too—and perhaps in raising more questions about the plot than it answers.
The small submarine—the film’s only set—has the dimensions of a single-decker bus. The shoulder-width pilot’s console is slanted upwards like an architect’s desk. On the right-hand side are two numerical displays like those on a clock radio designed for the visually-impaired, and, below this, a lever which can be pushed forwards and backwards but not sideways. On the left is a large compass facing, say, north-north-east, and two nineteen-sixties-science-fiction toggles which illuminate when mission control is talking. In the centre of the console is a series of lights and switches, with a red kill button at the very top. The display screens are lit in startling blue-white light. An old paper map is splayed willy-nilly over the console. The radiation exposure comes from the fact that “you can’t see through blood.” X-rays appear on a screen behind the console. They are as very grainy nineteen-sixties archive photographs of the surface of the moon; occasionally they form discernible human features like a hand or a face.
The first half of the film is spent observing, and the dialog-light narrative contains various lines such as “This is bigger than any of us—so just do your job;” or, “I’m done. I’m done. Just bring me back up and throw me in prison;” or, “What do I do if I find something not on this map.” It’s not exactly poetic but the more serious issue for “Iron Lung” is that there is little or no context to it. Instead of clues to understand and react emotionally to the story there is a void.
The external issue appears to be a lack of light. There is only one tree left on Earth and the stars have become black. This leads to apocalypticism and seriously minded musing on the future end of the world. In the past, the “brooding” of deep darkness is a frequent analogy for the world before Jesus, who is referred to as the “Morning Star”—the stars disappearing in “Iron Lung” thus equating with godlessness—but (even more obviously) the Bible begins with the world in darkness. “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” “And God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” The deep-sea group are the “Keepers of Eden,” thus niftily continuing the references to the Book of Genesis—Adam and Eve and the first tree of knowledge. “When we die, our bodies become the soil,” the leader of the “Keepers” says; in the words of the Christian burial service, “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.”
Frugally produced films offer a foil against Hollywood’s tendencies to excess. A great example from last year was “Good Boy,” which I reviewed in October. One set, one actor, one medium—it means that a great deal has to be done in lighting, sound, and production design such that the whole can stand up. The sound on its own is a great reason to see “Iron Lung.” (The extreme darkness would make the film challenging to make out at all outside a cinema.) In the first half, the soundtrack is non-rhythmic and without a tune (imagine the opposite of John Williams or even, say, Tchaikovsky). In the second half, the music is louder, more insistent, and considerably more pulsatile (there’s a lovely sequence which is backed by a metronomic rhythm beating every second), and becomes concentrated by industrial sounds—metal-on-metal, heavy machinery in an industrial manufacturing plant, propellers as on a submarine. Superimposed on this is the voice of the computer, which sounds like airplane-cockpit recordings on “Air Crash Investigation”—“stop;” “wait;” “leave the area immediately;” “insufficient privileges.” The photography tends to the lopsided and off-centre—exemplified in closeup shots of Simon looking upwards, his neck at a forty-five-degree angle, to talk directly to the audio speaker.
Simon ascends from the deep darkness aiming to reach the promised land of his freedom. “Sure. Good. Don’t mind me,” he says. “I’m just trying to go home. Just pretend like I’m not even here.” And then he points at the blue-white compass. “I’m trusting you,” he says.
Adam Poole
16th February 2026
If you are interested in viewing this screening, please book your tickets here
