Sorry about the compression in this one, too.  The designers of this compression software did not have hand-developed, hand-held filmmaking in mind.

"Mutual Induction" furthers some of the themes that Josh began to explore in "Empty", and bears a number of similarities in process.

This film was also developed by hand, and also features a single character wandering around alone in a desolate, uninhabited space.

These themes are refined in "Mutual Induction", however: there is a more ironic, academic, and traditionally experimental flavor to this film.

Where "Empty" impressed me with its raw emotional force, "Mutual Induction" is more of an intellectual exercise.  Though the main character makes a pretty sexy cowboy, I never believe that he's a real one, with his white cowboy hat and lasso accessories.  No, more likely a college student.

This conspicuous, central discrepancy isn't harmful to the film, however, because the character's presence doesn't seem intended to be anything but symbolic.

If there was any doubt about this, we're given the memorable, nostalgia-soaked-in-irony intertitle about this cowboy's "lost herd" early in the film.

So, we have a film of ideas, which, honestly, I have yet to decipher.  The vision is strong and consistent, the technique, both visual and sonic, striking, and the ideas behind it all... there for the study, for the careful attention of the truly engaged.

Like the best art films, "Mutual Induction" isn't actively evading comprehension: it's just complex, and it pays the audience the compliment of not spelling out its meaning.  We're smart enough to decide that for ourselves.