How <i>Two Distant Strangers</i> Exposes the Racial Blind Spots of the Involuntary Time Loop

Abstract This essay explores the racial-ideological undercurrents of the involuntary time loop (ITL) formula. It specifically looks at narrative form and other established formal elements such as typical plotlines, character constellations, and editing. The case study of a film that subverts the ITL formula precisely by following it reveals the racial—and specifically anti-Black—blind spots built into the trope. Travon Free's short film Two Distant Strangers (2020) incorporates most of the ITL formula's conventional features and condenses them into a thirty-two-minute film about police violence against Black Americans. Free's film, the present essay argues, exploits the potential of bringing Black stories and contexts to bear on popular narrative forms that were not envisaged for them. The essay thus aims at understanding the specific ways in which narrative conventions prescribe certain stories and characters while contributing to the exclusion of others.