The Magical Mystery Door from Mixtape

As many other art forms, music hypnotizes people in primarily two ways: surprise and repetition. It may appear as if Mixtape initially sticks to surprise or even shock value, but it’s methodical in how it moves across its playlist and suburban environments.

For every explosive car(t) ride, there’s padding of multiple skate rides. For every hardball coming, there’s a softball thrown. For every room exploration scene with a mechanical drive borrowed from Life Is Strange, there’s a night drive leading to a spontaneous hangout at a dinosaur theme park. And, of course, the unforgettable finale, one that feels abrupt only in the moment but unavoidable in the hindsight.

Even with all the highly articulate kaleidoscope mechanics, Mixtape’s most expressive moment comes with the door. It’s initially hidden, then revealed and painted in a flashback, then retrospectively added to the current-day environment. Just enough vivid colors, painting with both a roller and a brush, no expectation to do it right (outside the dreadful achievement on some platforms), and no certain way to do it wrong.

In Mixtape, I can’t really roll into a car and spend the last day of high school in hospital. I can’t make one of the characters stay. I can’t fully fix their relationships. What I can do, though, is leave a memory for these characters: this door is as much theirs as it’s mine at the end.