Examples include: Babel (2006), 21 Grams (2003), Crash (2004), Traffic (2000), Love Actually (2003) Youve probably guessed that this is a considerably recent genre. The term came about through the critic Roger Eberts description of Syriana as a film where the characters or actions reside in separate stories, but a connection or influence between those disparate stories is slowly revealed to the audience. This is generally achieved through devices that play with the idea of time being vertical and linear and subvert that notion; using methods such as flashbacks, split frames and interwoven storylines. Its not dissimilar from its older brother of a genre, the Anthology or Omnibus film which segments the film to tell a series of narratives, the main difference is that those in the anthology genre are usually feature films with short films placed within (think V/H/S or Coffee and Cigarettes), while Hyperlink cinema usually shifts between the different storylines to demonstrate their association. Often using the premise of a ripple effect where a small action has profound or devastating consequences in a later story, they build the sense of life being interconnected and for better or for worse, portray mankind as part of a global network.
