LFO 2013

Robert Nord, an awkward man, spends most of his time in his basement tinkering with synthesizers. After a heated argument with his wife Clara, whom he suspects of cheating, he retreats to the basement again, to her annoyance. There, over the Internet, he discusses with several of his friends his belief that he has what he calls a sound allergy to the music his wife enjoys, and he proposes that a certain frequency could act as the opposite of this allergy and grant him the peace he desires. With the help of Sinus-San, one of his friends from the Internet, he makes a breakthrough, though he hides the extent of his success. When Simon and Linn move next door to him, he resolves to experiment on them over the objections of his wife.

Robert invites over his new neighbors. Before he leaves to fetch coffee, he casually mentions that his family was killed in a car crash. Uncomfortable with the awkwardness of the conversation, Simon tells Clara that he intends to leave. However, when Robert returns, he plays a hypnotic frequency that compels them to obey his commands. He orders Simon to perform menial tasks and Linn to have sex with him. When Clara calls him pathetic, he defends his actions as being necessary to test the extent of his control. Eventually, it is revealed that Clara and his son, Sebastian, died when Robert sabotaged the family car. Clara chides him to take his antipsychotic medicine, pointing out that she is a hallucination, but Robert refuses. Instead, he forces Simon and Linn to take the place of his dead family members.

After several weeks of servitude at his house, his neighbors are reported missing, and the police show up at Robert’s house to ask if he has seen them. Robert panics and hypnotizes the police into leaving his house. Unsatisfied with his fake family, he releases Simon and Linn, though he monitors their life using security devices. When Linn accidentally discovers through the security device that Simon has been cheating on her, Robert hypnotizes them into accepting him as their marriage counselor. Robert again forces Linn to have sex with him, and he forces Simon to passively watch as punishment for cheating on her. When he tires of this, he again releases them from his control and amuses himself with mean-spirited pranks on his other neighbors. Clara urges him to find a more meaningful life.

Over time, the car manufacturer and police become interested in Robert’s involvement in the deaths of his wife and son. Sinus-San, who has been investigating Robert, threatens to go to the police unless Robert shares his invention. Robert hypnotizes Sinus-San and a representative of the car manufacturer, but the case against him continues. Frustrated with both the state of the world and his inability to be left in peace, Robert decides to broaden his experiment. He first compels Simon and Linn to form a rock band with him, but abandons that idea when their songs turn out amateurish. Robert then asks Simon and Linn for advice, and they describe their vision of a utopian society. Intrigued by their protestations that he should not play God, Robert asks them to define God.

Armed with their conception of a benevolent deity, Robert hypnotizes himself to emulate those qualities. Robert practices learning various foreign languages, and a series of voice-overs report that he has attained increasingly more prestigious positions in society, ultimately rising to the position of ruler of a unified Earth. At first, he forces through sweeping changes to society, but his message becomes increasingly pessimistic and antihumanist until he commands the entire human race to commit mass suicide.

The narrative tracks a perilous ascent of power and the erosion of humanity under a man who can bend others to his will, leaving viewers to ponder the fragility of individual sanity and the costs of unchecked control.