"Are you following the red dot?"

"For your sakes, I hope not, because this red dot is your enemy."

Trying to watch the dot without following it is just one of the many mysteries that make up the philosophical puzzle piece that is You Are Here. The film is the first feature from video artist Daniel Cockburn and it's a perfect meta-movie to help you forget the summer's sugary-sweet offerings at the multiplex.

Anand Rajaram appears in a scene from Daniel Cockburn's film You Are Here. (Pacific Northwest Pictures)

A cinematic spawn of Charlie Kaufman and Franz Kafka, You Are Here is a film that asks more questions than it answers. It's an experimental journey through the eyes of various urbanites: everyone is looking for something, but many don't know what that something is.

The journey starts with a video of a professor, who stands before a loop of cascading waves and shines his laser pointer (one of many red dots), but urges his audience not to follow it. From there, other playful and sometimes paradoxical stories pile up.

There's the story the Alan, who finds a red ball and ponders a door to nowhere. There is an office, filled with brown phones manned by a guy named Hal, who looks like an extra from The Rockford Files. He and his colleagues answer calls and plot positions as Torontonians move from intersection to intersection. Then there's a child's tale of the red-eyed man who teaches the world to see things his way. In the middle of it all is the tale of the archivist: one of the final roles of the late Tracy Wright.

In one of her final roles, actress Tracy Wright portrays an archivist in You Are Here. (Pacific Northwest Pictures)

In a tale that could describe the film itself, the archivist works towards finding a pattern amid the noise. Every day, she walks until she finds something: a cassette tape, a Super 8 reel, a letter. She then returns to her room and documents her discovery. Wright plays the role with a quiet stoicism. Overall, the film is filled with a number of restrained performances that fit in with Cockburn's playful tone.

Like the infinite libraries of Jorge Luis Borges or Kaufman's search for meaning in Synecdoche, New York, You Are Here is a movie that turns in on itself. A fractal kind of film, You Are Here could be considered a metaphor, of sorts, for finding one's place in our age of endless media.

To be blunt, this movie's not for everyone, but stick with it to the end and some of the puzzle pieces finally fall into place. If you're looking for explanations, Cockburn would never be so obvious. A mood piece and a post-modern maze, You Are Here is where you are.

RATING: Three-and-a-half red balls out of five.

You Are Here opens in Toronto on Friday, with other cities to follow.

Playful and sometimes paradoxical stories pile up in You Are Here. (Pacific Northwest Pictures)