SELECTED SHORTS VIII - CRITERION CHANNEL

Periodically I will gather together my takes on shorter films I’ve watched, looking at the variety of subjects and styles available; a shorter film also means a smaller budget but generally more creative freedom. Low financial stakes, high creative reward.

You can read the previous columns here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

24 Frames Per Century (2013; Italy; 3 minutes): Director Athina Rachel Tsangari builds an intriguing, sorta cute, but slight tribute to the power of cinema, showing the mechanical worries of two film projectors working side by side on a seaside cliff to send images out into the great expanse. Commissioned by the Venice Film Festival, it plays more like an introduction than a stand-alone piece. One wonders what Jean-Luc Godard, whose Contempt [review] Tsangari draws on, would make of this. Would he enjoy the irreverence but dismiss the sentimentality?

Fit (1994; United States; 8 minutes): Another from Athina Rachel Tsangari, this one playful and clever, a surreal examination of one woman’s obsession with making things fit--onto objects, into her body, wherever they need to go. Leading from a dream where her boyfriend’s mouth doles out marbles by the...well, mouthful, into a day that begins with one of her socks shrinking and no longer covering her foot. It’s neurotic and a bit off-kilter, but enjoyable to see what she’ll pick next and where she’ll stick it. The droll narration only adds to the fun.

Baby (1954; United States; 5 minutes): An early work from the recently departed D.A. Pennebaker. This one is simple: the documentarian took his young daughter to the zoo and followed her as she explored. The camera takes in the sights, looking at each animal and also riding the carousel with the same childlike wonder as its star. Very charming.

[Also available on the Don’t Look Back Blu-ray [review].]

Sacrilege (2017; France/Switzerland; 14 minutes): Saoud (Mehdi Djaadi) is top dog in his French neighborhood. He’s got the freshest kicks, the dopest rhymes, and can walk the talk--that is, until he is unexpectedly accused of robbing the mosque where he and his friends worship. Saoud denies the accusation, but slowly the mob grows and stands against him, the words they once hung on now appearing empty.

Director Christophe M. Saber packs a lot of character and drama into Sacrilege. He establishes who his lead is quickly, and then delineates the roles of the social circle that surrounds him. But what is particularly impressive about Sacrilege is how it defies our perception and our narrative prejudices. We have certain expectations when watching a story like this, and each viewer may also come with their own added preconceived notions based on the people involved (hip-hop, Muslim, French...take your pick). That Sacrilege keeps leading us one way, only to flip our position with the next protestation, not only keeps this short film riveting, but forces us to ponder what we just saw.

Pioneer (2011; United States; 16 minutes): A simple concept executed well: a widower (singer/songwriter Will Oldham, also seen in Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy) tells his four-year-old son (Myles Brooks) a long bedtime story about how their bond has spanned history, with separations and returns and the intrusion of the outside world adding twists along the way. That’s it. It’s a story so contained, you almost can’t believe they didn’t try to break out of it.

But writer/director David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints [review]) trusts the magic in his script, and possibly even more the charisma of his lead. Oldham is all-in here, spinning a yarn with conviction and panache. He turns life and death, age and experience, on their heads, to create a world of possibility for his young son, and it’s impossible not to buy in yourself.

N.U. (1948; Italy; 12 minutes)/Sunday in Peking (1956; France; 22 minutes): An early documentary from Michelangelo Antonioni (L’avventura [review], N.U. spends a day following street cleaners around Rome. (The title is the abbreviation of the Italian name for the sanitation service.) There is no real narrative, we hop from worker to worker, with the black-and-white photography giving us a wonderful glimpse of the city as it was then--including how dirty. You’ll marvel at the inconsiderate actions of many citizens, and what a thankless task trying to clean up after them can be. Yet, there is something noble in the workers diligently carrying on.

Far from Rome, we have Peking, here shown in full color by Chris Marker (La jetee [review]. Sunday in Peking is almost like a educational travelogue, showing us street scenes from around the city. What is key to Sunday in Peking beyond the photographic document, though, is Marker’s narration. The project began with the filmmaker as a fanciful child looking at a picture in a book, a site the film crew immediately visits. This is very much filtered though Eastern eyes, albeit one of a foreigner with political sympathies in Mao’s regime (the leader even makes an appearance). It comes off now as both respectful and naïve, as it shows many lovely aspects of culture but questions nothing about what lies beyond the tourism.

[N.U. is also available on the Red Desert Blu-ray [review], which makes sense thematically.]

Fry Day (2017; United States; 16 minutes): A portrait of a modern-day Little Red Riding Hood surrounded by any number of Big Bad Wolves. Lauren (Jordyn DiNatale, Lez Bomb) is an enterprising teenager with a grand idea: on the eve of Ted Bundy’s execution, she takes her Polaroid camera to the place outside the prison where onlookers have gathered and sells photos for $2 a pop. There she runs into Keith (Jimi Stanton, The Punisher), a cute boy from her school. He convinces her to go with him and his friends to get some food, and things start to take a bad turn from there.

The genius of Laura Moss’ short film is how easily it slides the audience into this predicament. It takes a while for us to suspect Keith means harm, we go along just as casually as Lauren--who wears a paper Bundy mask around her neck, lest any of us forget just what some men are capable of. When we start to realize that more is going on here than it seems, it’s too late, we’re trapped in it, and we can only hope it won’t go as bad as it could. Moss and co-writer Brendan J. O’Brien understand these boys and their pack mentality, including having one of the young men seem more smart and thoughtful. He’s the one who would say he was just along for the ride. And Keith’s final act is perhaps the worst manipulation of all. One kind gesture is all he needs to keep a wedge in the door should he ever get back in.

By that point, Fry Day has made us sick to our stomach, exposing how easy victimization of this kind can be, and even how complicit we are in our own dreamy narrative expectations. This makes the last shot all the more devastating. There’s part of us that still wants to trust, when it’s no stretch to think Lauren has no trust left.

Would make a good double feature with Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk.

SELECTED SHORTS VII: THE RETURN - CRITERION CHANNEL

The Criterion Channel is back, and so is my review column focusing on short films presented on the channel. Periodically I will gather together my takes on the shorter films I’ve watched. One of the fun things is looking at the variety of subjects and styles available, since a shorter film also means a smaller budget but generally more creative freedom. Low financial stakes, high creative reward.

You can read the previous columns here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Uncle Yanco (1967; USA/France; 18 minutes): The late Agnès Varda helmed this playful, rule-breaking documentary to chronicle meeting a distant uncle who, prior to this, had just been a legend in the Varda family. Yanco was a Greek immigrant who left the clan after a move to France, traveling to the United States and taking up residency in the years before World War II. Varda finds the painter--who previously had been mythologized by Henry Miller--living in an innovative aquatic community near San Francisco.

Blending fact and fiction, and exposing the cinematic process while doing so, Varda lets the natural raconteur share his experiences, indulging his idiosyncrasies, and giving him multiple takes to play around with the “happening.” It’s a charming time capsule, perfectly reflective of the time period, but also a great example of Varda’s propensity for improvisation.

[Also available in the Agnes Varda in California box, Eclipse Series 43.]

Saute ma ville (Blow Up My Town) (1968; Belgium;13 minutes): Avant-garde filmmaker Chantal Akerman’s debut, the initial spark of experimentation: a brief story about one woman, played by Akerman herself, living out her last night on Earth. She indulges herself, resorts to mundane tasks, and carries on a private internal conversation while slowly sealing herself in her apartment to isolate herself from the outside world, whatever it may hold. Akerman creates a disconcerting tone, seemingly at play within the visuals, but with an (intentionally?) fake sounding audio track distracting from the reality of the action. I am not sure Saute ma ville ultimately adds up to much, but is worthwhile for seeing a developing artist grappling with her craft.

[Also available on Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles; and previously reviewed which much kinder eyes here.]

All These Creatures (2018; Australia; 13 minutes): Charles Williams tackles topics as broad genetics and hereditary madness, parental disappointment, and one young man’s existential crisis over his place in this world that is both potent and fragile, and he does so in a self-contained, personal manner.

A teenager meditates on a time his backyard was overtaken by cicadas, a portent for his father’s imminent disappearance. In the boy’s head, he ties the two things together, theorizing that the insects were summoned by his father’s foolish attempts to dig a swimming pool in their backyard, a pointless scheme he was ill-equipped to execute. It is a metaphor for the father’s suicidal tendencies, digging a hole toward something he can’t find. All These Creatures accurately captures that childhood feeling that all things are connected, and where our parents go, so shall we go. As someone who has had to contend with mental illness in his own family, it’s something I can relate with all too well. How do we break the patterns? Are we meant to? Or is there a fundamental flaw in human design that means we don’t belong on this planet at all?

Williams picks his moments carefully, showing the father’s most dangerous and troubling actions in quick glimpses, a brief snatch at lucidity, answering no questions but offering a kind of closure nonetheless. All These Creatures is dreamy and heartbreaking, a prose poem captured on film. The images are compelling, even as they strain against the narrator’s grounded explanations, hinting at an unknowable psychology, the secrets that power us all.

Tidy Up (2011; Japan; 15 minutes): When his mother dies, Akira (Kan Takashima) decides that it’s time to clean out his childhood home. Only, when he arrives, he discovers his sister Moe (Misa Shimizu) is already there, and she’s insisting they keep the place as it is, piled high with trash and the detritus of the many years the family lived there.

A quiet battle plays out over an afternoon, with each sibling pushing his or her agenda. Akira has come with movers, so his argument is more forceful, but in the end, it’s the home movies that Moe discovers that brings the pair together. The power of cinema as memory evoked!

When it comes down to it, writer/director Satsuki Okawa takes no sides, even if it’s clear which one the audience will likely take--Akira evokes public opinion and social mores to suggest hoarding is crazy. What Tidy Up comes down to, though, is how each sibling processes grief and how they choose to remember what they’ve lost, and how the distance between seems shorter when they take the time to consider the woman to whom they are both there to say farewell.

SELECTED SHORTS VI - CRITERION CHANNEL

With Filmstruck shutting down, I thought I’d squeeze in one last shorts column. If there is a way to resurrect it at a later date, naturally, I will, but without the Criterion Channel, the label doesn’t really have any other venue to showcase random short films--I guess unless I just watch ones that are bonus features on their discs, reviewing them separately from the main feature. I’m sad to see Filmstruck go. It was fun while it lasted. While I imagine that the Criterion Channel will get resurrected again, hopefully with the same level of curation, I doubt we will get another one-two punch of also having the added bonus of the Turner Classics library.

You can read the previous columns here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

My Josephine (2003; USA; 7 minutes): Moonlight-director Barry Jenkins creates a collage-like narrative about two Arab immigrants running a laundromat. The man is in love with the woman, whom he compares to Napoleon’s first wife, and he ponders the nature of devotion, longing, and assimilation. It all works on a symbolic level, expressing their joint--and disjointed--experience through suggestion and metaphor, and yet is also effective as simple drama.

Bath House (2014; Sweden 15 minutes): I’ve reviewed a couple of films by Niki Lindroth von Bahr in previous installments, but this is by far the one with the most coherent plot. Featuring the director’s usual stop-motion style, it portrays a public pool where several animal characters intersect: the horse who is working at the bath house, a gay feline couple who go their to swim, and a trio of bunnies looking to rob the place. Things go wrong for each outing, leaving all six critters stranded on the street, unable to swim, as the pool itself starts to disintegrate.

Less surreal and abstract than Tord and Tord or The Burden, Bath House manages a quiet humanity, finding intrigue in everyday life, suggesting individual conflict through tiny actions. It’s also charming to look at.

Incident By A Bank (2010; Sweden; 13 minutes): This short by Ruben Olstund, the director of Force Majeure and The Square, is an impressive piece of film choreography. Shot in one continuous take, it captures two inept bank robbers trying to pull a heist, but from the vantage of a non-participatory observer. Remaining outside the bank, the camera probes the street, looking for action and reaction, as bystanders comment on the events, jump into the fray, or even move through the scene oblivious to what is really going on. It’s all rather fascinating both in execution and in drama, putting us in the position to judge the voyeurs who do nothing--while literally doing nothing ourselves.

The Horse in Focus (1956; Sweden; 17 minutes): Staying in Sweden to dip into the Criterion 100 Years of Olympic Films collection, this colorful documentary is both quaint and erudite, kind of exactly the sort of thing you imagined a couple of years back when Mitt Romney was made fun of for participating in “dressage.”

The star here is the commentator rather than the performers, with his clear bias for his home country and flashes of dry wit, tossing zingers at riders when they make errors. There is little suspense in the proceedings, particularly as much is left on the cutting room floor and often the commentary jumps ahead to tell us what happens next. But what makes The Horse in Focus interesting is how it approaches the athletes, with neither the horse nor the rider really given any prime attention. Rather, they are a unit, rising and falling, quite literally, together.

An Act of Love (2018; Australia; 11 minutes): Writer/director Lucy Knox packs a lot into a very short time. A pair of identical twin black girls has their afternoon out at the mall swerve from light-hearted fun to a deep interpersonal drama, testing their sibling bond. When a capricious older boy decides to separate them by turning his flirtatious attention on one sister, leaving the other behind, it stirs up a variety of conflicting emotions in both girls, ultimately requiring a drastic measure of solidarity to repair the damage. In all of this lingers questions of identity and an outcry against the extensive damage of casual racism and misogyny. Knox’s narrative is minimal, but her meaning complex.

Night Mayor (2009; Canada; 14 minutes): The auteur Guy Maddin is up to his usual visual tricks in this black-and-white film evoking 1930s sci-fi and horror. A Croatian immigrant sets out to convert the aurora borealis into music, but his efforts succeed far beyond his imagination, going beyond simple melody and instead broadcasting evocative images across Canada’s phone lines. Though he believes he has tapped into something that shows his fellow Canadians glimpses of themselves and their own national character, there is an underlying menace to his invention, particularly in how he exploits his family.

Night Mayor is an evocative mood piece, with Jason Staczek’s avant-garde music doing a lot of heavy lifting to make the titular pun a cinematic reality. (Say it out loud a couple of times, you’ll get it.)

Home (2016; England; 20 minutes): Is there more going on here than I am seeing? From what I can surmise, Daniel Mulloy is executing a simple reversal technique, showing us the struggle of European refugees by making the focus a middle-class British family trying to get through a war zone. Or is it that they are getting into one, rather than escaping to safety? No matter, the approach is so straightforward, Home is wholly ineffective. It only succeeds in shining a light on the actuality of white privilege: if you need to recognize the skin and accent as similar to your own in order to empathize with such tragic situations, then you’re as shallow as this film.

Swallowed (2016; USA; 17 minutes): Lily Baldwin pulls triple duty here as writer, director, and star, creating for herself a trippy yet ultimately baffling horror film. Centering on a young mother who begins to have bizarre hallucinations while breastfeeding her child, this short quickly descends into a lot of surreal nonsense, a couple of special effects away from being body horror, but never quite settling into any clear realm of meaning. My guess was that this had something to do with food anxieties, particularly that of women, who are expected to not just give of their bodies, but in more traditional (read: outdated) scenarios, to also cook for everyone. In that, Swallowed finds little victory. Baldwin’s perception of reactions others have to her food--dancing, writhing, convulsing--look like parodies of cliché acting exercises. “Pick an animal and pretend to be that animal vomiting.” Swallowed is like someone saw the last reels of Darren Aronofsky’s mother! and failed to realize he spent a good 45 minutes setting everything up.

Reading the official description of the film, though, it appears that Swallowed is not about any of that, but more about the feelings its main character tamps down, Marge Simpson-style, in order to maintain a brave face. More telling than even that, however, is the fact that the screenplay was based on someone’s dream, proving once again that dreams are boring when they aren’t (a) either contrived to fit into some narrative and thus don’t reflect real dreams at all (see 99% of all movies with dream sequences) or (b) lacking the personal interest that allows one to either be fascinated by what they don’t understand or somehow decode it. Thinking about it, though, the only thing that might be worse than watching Swallowed would be listening to the dreamer/director try to explain it. Whatever the code, continue to keep it to yourself.

SELECTED SHORTS V - CRITERION CHANNEL

The Criterion Channel, in addition to hosting a plethora of feature films, also has a varied collection of short films--live action, animated, fiction, documentary; comedy and drama; silent and talkies.

Short cinema--just like short stories--is a unique art form unto itself, employing different conventions, and bringing with it different expectations, but these pieces are no less worthy of consideration than full-length films. From time to time, I will take a look at a selection of what’s on offer. You can read the previous columns here: 1, 2, 3, 4.

A Gentle Night (2017; China; 15 minutes): When a thirteen-old-girl doesn’t return home, everyone but her mother is content to “wait and see.” As her husband sleeps, the woman (Shuxian Li) spends the late hours going to places the child might go, hoping against hope that she’ll be out there and not a victim of the dark.

Yang Qiu’s Cannes-honored short is a drama with a quiet restlessness. The feelings of dread, anxiety, and guilt that overwhelm the mother come through the screen to those of us watching. Details are scarce, but those that do emerge are important. Through dialogue, we learn that the father is overbearing, but the mother is also a disciplinarian. Yet, we also know from her public encounters, perhaps the mother is the only one in the whole world who has a real relationship with the missing girl. The daughter herself is the only one we never learn about. Which just adds to the guilt.

A Gentle Night lacks a definitive resolution, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Yang Qiu is peddling a feeling here, and our acceptance of it determines how we view the movie. Think about it when you’re done. You’ll have an opinion about what happened to the girl, even if you didn’t realize it. Somehow, in just a short time, A Gentle Night moves you toward your own resolution.

Hunger (1974; Canada; 12 minutes): Once a gluttonous man starts eating, he can’t stop, in this animated short from Peter Foldes. Set entirely to music, no dialogue, we watch as the skinny office worker grows into an obese shut-in, blowing through relationships and all trappings of regular life, until there’s no way to avoid his ironic end. Foldes works with an open line style, allowing for the characters to morph naturally, particularly his lead, who goes from stick figure to complete oval in the end. Nothing too surprising or enticing, but well paced and visually intriguing enough to sustain its running time.

Also notable as Hunger was apparently an early trailblazer in computer animation.

The Voice Thief (2013; Chile/France/USA; 22 minutes): A silly narrative poorly performed, this surreal drama by Adan Jodorowsky, working from a story written by his father Alejandro Jodorowsky, stars controversial actress Asia Argento (Marie Antoinette [review]) as an opera singer who loses her voice when her husband (Cristobal Jodorowsky) chokes her. Distraught by his actions, he searches for a replacement, using mystical means to extract the singing voices from three different people he victimizes. With each new voice, the singer takes on the persona of the victim.

Though lush in design and beautifully shot, The Voice Thief is a pretentious dud. Undercut by retro 1970s horror music and overloaded with indulgent symbolism, this is essentially a student film elevated via nepotism.

When We Lived in Miami (2013; USA; 13 minutes): Amy Seimetz (Upstream Color) pulls double-duty as director and performer, portraying a woman facing potentially becoming a single mother while also worrying about the danger of an incoming hurricane. The narrative is strung together with small moments. The camera moves around the participants and the landscape, never quite settling, always searching, and along with the short scene cuts, it makes for an aesthetic that’s pleasantly reminiscent of Terence Malick, trying to draw the family back together even as the editing continues to separate them. Seimetz is incredibly focused here, the grief and the uncertainty permeating every frame.

Premature (2013; Norway; 16 minutes): Director Gunhild Enger creates a shifting, uncomfortable 15-minute car ride full of nervous pleasantries and bizarre social bumbles. A young Norwegian man is bringing home his pregnant Spanish girlfriend to meet the parents for the first time. She doesn’t speak Norwegian, the parents don’t speak Spanish, but they all speak English to some degree. Communication is halting, with different participants slipping into their native tongues for private asides, but since there are no subtitles, ingeniously, the audience is only privy to what they themselves can understand.

Many might recognize their own family here: the mother who means well but can’t stop from putting her foot in her mouth, the frustrated child, the peacekeeping father. Ultimately, though, you feel the most sorry for the girl, who clearly doesn’t know what she has gotten herself into. Premature takes a simple premise and a limiting technique and yet squeezes a whole hell of a lot out of both.

SMITHEREENS - #941

While 1970s American movies like Taxi Driver and Dog Day Afternoon gave us an indelible image of the grimy side of 1970s New York, it was the independent auteurs that followed that captured the more arty, anything-goes side of the city’s culture. Early Jarmusch, for instance, and even Martin Scorsese’s Big Apple follow-ups to Travis Bickle like The King of Comedy and After Hours.

Susan Seidelman is by far more in the Jarmusch camp. The New York of her 1982 feature debut Smithereens is the New York that gave us Basquiat and Madonna--with whom, of course, Seidelman would make Desperately Seeking Susan not too long after. Interesting people doing interesting things just for the sake of it, just because they thought New York was the place to be. New wave music and graffiti, striped skirts and checkered sunglasses, hustlers and poseurs--all of these are elements of Smithereens, and all make the film interesting, even if its story never quite finds the depth of its surroundings.

First-time film actress Susan Berman stars in Smithereens as Wren, a New Jersey ex-pat who is trying to blag her way into a rock-and-roll lifestyle. It’s never quite clear what Wren’s artistry encompasses, and likely she hasn’t figured it out yet either, but she plasters photocopies of her face around the city and pretty much barrels through anyone who gets in front of her. Forever the opportunist, she drags along fresh Montana-transplant Paul (Brad Rinn) to her night on the town when it’s clear he’ll pay the bills, but then drops him for Eric, a singer played by real life punk icon Richard Hell, as soon as he shows a passing interest and potentially something to gain. Wren spends the rest of Smithereens bouncing between the two, with only Paul being smart enough to know he’s being used, and the girl too blind to see that Eric will never take her to Los Angeles and let her manage his band.

Working with mostly an unprofessional cast*, Seidelman manages a kind of neorealism that is as much John Cassavetes as it is Jim Jarmusch--though I’d also compare this to Alison Anderson’s Border Radio [review]. This quality will  be a boon for viewers looking for an unvarnished time capsule, but might be a problem if you are seeking something with a bit more form. Seidelman is definitely working with the best of what she had available. Shot by Chirine El Khaden, who also worked a camera on the influential hip-hop movie Wild Style, Smithereens has the dirt and grime of a documentary--all of which comes through with a gritty clarity on the Criterion Blu-ray. We see such mythologized sights as the Peppermint Club, and most of the people hanging around are likely the real deal and not hired extras. Going from seedy movie theatres to Bohemian cafes, there is an undeniable authenticity to Smithereens. You could almost say you were there.

And you could also say you’ve spent a lifetime with its main character. Wren is a hard woman to like. Paul is entirely right: she is a self-serving loser with a bigger mouth than tangible qualities to offer. The only thing that makes her tolerable--as opposed to, say, Agnes Varda’s Vagabond protagonist, or countless loudmouth male sidekick characters like most anything Jason Lee played in the 1990s--is that Susan Berman understands the insecurity behind the bravado, and she can sell it when the façade drops. If only she was a tad more charismatic, I might have felt more inspired by the freeze-frame ending. Wren could have been more like Antoine Doinel on the beach at the end of The 400 Blows [review], suggesting a possible future; instead, she only appears startled by the irony of receiving unwanted attention after spending the whole movie trying to monopolize everyone’s time.

Much better is Seidelman’s initial film-school short And You Act Like One Too. Shot in 1976, this black-and-white tale of a housewife feeling neglected on her 30th birthday is a charming day-in-the-life. Marsha (Karen Butler) is abandoned by her husband and daughter on what is meant to be her special day, so instead of sitting around feeling sorry for herself, Marsha goes out and gets a new hairdo, runs some errands, and takes a chance giving a ride to a charming hitchhiker (Andras Maros). Unsurprisingly, this trip leads her to some unexpected places, and Seidelman delivers a comic twist at the end that is truly delightful. The film is simple in its intent, but broad in its character analysis.

Seidelman’s second student film is the color divorce drama Yours Truly, Andrea G. Stern. This short focuses its attention on young Andrea (Jilian Frank), the daughter of a newly separated couple. She lives with her mom (Joanne Gross), and starts to feel left out when a new man (Billy Wine) moves into the house. While the narrative thrust is that Andrea is trying to get Jonathan to move out, this isn’t a Disney Channel comedy where the schemes are wild and implausible; on the contrary, Seidelman’s deeply felt script imagines what realistic actions Andrea would take, what tools she’d have at her disposal.

Yours Truly, Andrea G. Stern is somewhat ambitious in style, framing itself as a documentary with the off-screen director colluding with the girl, but also putting us in the space of her imagination. The title refers to how Andrea signs off her diary entries, which also serve as narration for the film. The result is something more real and personal than if Seidelman had chosen not to take a child’s point of view so serious.

* Though keep an eye out, because apparently Chris Noth from Law & Order and Sex and the City plays a prostitute! I didn’t see him, but I didn’t know to look.

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

SELECTED SHORTS IV: ANIMATION EDITION - CRITERION CHANNEL

The Criterion Channel, in addition to hosting a plethora of feature films, also has a varied collection of short films--live action, animated, fiction, documentary; comedy and drama; silent and talkies.

Since this will post while I am attending this year’s San Diego Comic-Con International, I decided to select this month’s films according to an appropriate theme. Namely, all of these shorts are animated.

Old Man (2012; United States; 6 minutes): Director Leah Shore takes a recorded phone call between author Marlin Marynick and an imprisoned Charles Manson and brings it to life via a mish-mash of animation styles. The technique is impressive, but the intent is questionable. These morphing images defang the malice and sick ideas inherent in Manson’s rant, which may be the point, but it doesn’t sit well with me to see his ramblings treated as if they were a piece of innocuous found audio or an internet meme. The lack of editorialization more or less suggests that he’s a harmless old coot and his stream of consciousness is at best humorous and at worst normal. Which may be overthinking it, but that’s my impression nonetheless. 

The short is accompanied by a 5-minute introduction by the director, which failed to change my mind. While Shore does give some insight into her own creative process and explains how she stitched this six minutes together from hours of interviews, it also reveals a lack of insight into the source material and a strange divorcement from everything loaded into the Manson persona. Art for art’s sake is fine, but callous kitsch is just lazy.

Call of Cuteness (2017; Germany; 4 minutes): Brenda Lien uses a tiled animation style to spotlight our obsession with cats and the memes their opportunistic owners spawn before moving into more grotesque areas that call into question just what the hell we are doing to these animals. Both alluring and unsettling, it’s just the right kind of media consumption indictment, not entirely what it critiques, but just enough that, when it’s all said and done, we feel like a pile of garbage for so easily being drawn in.

Pussy (2016; Poland; 9 minutes): This one is not about cats. But it does have a vagina that detaches itself from its owner and becomes sentient. I was disturbed by it, but I don’t think director Renata Gasiorowska intended me to be. Which probably says enough and maybe I should just stop right here....

Begone Dull Care (1949; Canada; 8 minutes): Set to the jazz of the Oscar Peterson Trio, this abstract animated film from Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart is a joyous explosion of sound and color. Bending lines, morphing shapes, the texture and groove of film itself dances to the rhythm, bringing improvisational modern art together with two of the most popular art forms of the time--film and music. A delightful confectionary.

Asparagus (1979; USA; 18 minutes): Suzan Pitt’s animated experiment was often paired with David Lynch’s Eraserhead in its early years, the two playing art houses together as a dual course for adventurous filmgoers.

The colorful visuals perfectly bring to life late 1970s psychedelia, looking like an underground comic strip animated by a Monty Python-era Terry Gilliam. Pictorially stream of conscious, Pitt’s narrative is made up of images melting and transforming into the next thing. It is both mind-bending and sexual, with the image of the asparagus plant itself serving as a proxy for both male and female sex organs.

Edmond Was a Donkey (2012; Croatia; 15 minutes): An office prank inspires an outsider to reject the conformity of his co-workers and embrace what makes him different; in this case, his desire to have the simple, contemplative life of a donkey. Franck Dion’s 3D modeling has the feel of a modern storybook, making the surreal seem solid. Edmond’s journey is one of perception. Is he sick? Is he crazy? Or does he just know more than everyone else. The ending is appropriately ambiguous in some ways, but also allows the viewer to feel a sense of satisfaction by leaning in favor of Edmond getting his wish.

SELECTED SHORTS III - CRITERION CHANNEL

The Criterion Channel, in addition to hosting a plethora of feature films, also has a varied collection of short films--live action, animated, fiction, documentary; comedy and drama; silent and talkies.

Short cinema--just like short stories--is a unique art form unto itself, employing different conventions, and bringing with it different expectations, but these pieces are no less worthy of consideration than full-length films. From time to time, I will take a look at a selection of what’s on offer. You can read the previous columns here and here.

Neighbours (1952; Canada; 8 minutes): Two men with adjoining homes find their friendship disrupted by a flower growing on their property line. They argue, build fences, and try to take possession of the plant until the whole thing overwhelms them. Told without dialogue, and shot using stop-motion techniques, Neighbours is a whimsical, surreal parable. Director Norman McLaren was a wizard with the camera, and he says more about human greed and the futility of war in this abstract handful of minutes than many say with a full script and an extended running time.

Casus Belli (2010; Greece; 11 minutes): A clever construct. Director Yorgos Zois strings people together queue by queue, showing groups standing in line for groceries, a nightclub, confession, off-track betting, an art museum, and an ATM. We scroll past each gathering, and the first person in the line steps out of it and moves over to the next. Unfortunately, when Zois gets to his point, the turn is rather heavy handed, ending at a bread line and featuring an actor giving a disdainful look to the camera when the charity comes up short. I get the idea is to switch from the frivolous to the serious, but it’s a pretty obvious move and Casus Belli is less effective for it.

Skunk (2014; USA; 17 minutes): Writer and director Annie Silverstein creates an uncomfortable, but strangely comforting short tale of adolescence. When a Texas teen (Jenivieve Nugent) takes her dog down to the river to give him a bath after he ended up on the wrong end of a skunk, she meets an opportunistic boy (Sam Stinson) who toys with her emotions, promising her all kinds of things if she’ll hook up with him and let him use her pooch in a dogfight.

Stories like this come with a built-in tension, as we have seem the likes of this boy before, and we know his brand of interference rarely bodes well. One watches Skunk with a knot of worry. Just how bad will this go for Leila? Silverstein approaches the events with an unwavering honesty, she is not exploitative. While Criterion has smartly paired this with Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank [review], I’m perhaps reminded more of David Gordon Green’s George Washington [review]. What all three directors have in common is an empathy for their characters; their storytelling is observational, they never look down their noses at their protagonists, but rather try to put themselves into the situation to see where they come from.

The Acquaintances of a Lonely John (2008; USA; 12 minutes): A solo outing from Benny Safdie (one half of the team behind Good Time), this short follows one guy on his daily meanderings. Aimless by design, one I suppose should be prepared to forgive a lot, but only a few of the scenarios are charming. Likely Safdie--who also plays the titular John--is making best use of what he had available; the film mostly loses its way when it settles down at a gas station for some Clerks style antics. Ironically, The Acquaintances of a Lonely John is actually best when Safdie is alone and simply amusing himself.

John’s Gone (2010; USA; 22 minutes): Josh and Ben Safdie directing together, with Ben starring as John--perhaps the same John from Benny’s earlier effort, hard to say. The tone is similar to The Acquaintances of a Lonely John: a touch of comedy, a loose plot, episodic. Here John is hustling various goods out of his apartment, selling second-hand junk and pulling internet scams. The film itself puts focus on the strange customers, and John’s interactions with other people in his apartment building. He’s a guy who seems to try to have a hand in everything, and sometimes it gets him in trouble. Many narrative opportunities are missed here. The Safdies could go in deep on any number of the relationships, or even hold John’s feet to the fire when a one-night stand he was rude to comes back, but John’s Gone always stays on the superficial. Ultimately, there is no ending here, no conclusion to be drawn, the movie just fades out.

The Black Case (2014; Canada; 13 minutes): A mysterious, surreal drama with elements of horror, The Black Case causes the audience to question the nature of identity, voyeurism, and in a way, one’s own physicality. Set in a strange hospital scenario, we see two children locked away and the doctor and nurse that are meant to care for them. Just about everything isn’t what it seems, and though co-directors Caroline Monnet and Daniel Watchorn eschew all exposition--and hell, dialogue for the most part--they don’t obfuscate for the mere sake of it. Like Eraserhead but with one foot still in reality.

L’opera-mouffe (1958; France; 16 minutes): Also known as Diary of a Pregnant Woman, this black-and-white short from Agnès Varda, who was indeed pregnant at the time of the making and serves as her own model at the start of the picture, is more of a collage of the life cycle of a small French village than it is a look at the cycle of pregnancy. Set to a score by the great Georges Delerue (Jules et Jim), Varda details many aspects of existence, from sex and food to drunkenness and anxiety. The bits that do touch on the birth process tend to be more abstracted, including the surreal growth and eventual hatching of a chicken from a glass bowl. The result is whimsical and strange, but also kind of sobering. Also, a greater collection of real faces you aren’t likely to find in any cinematic era.

(This film is also available on the DVD of Cléo from 5 to 7.)

The Burden (2017; Sweden; 14 minutes): Another surreal musical, this time by director Niki Lindroth von Bahr, whose Tord and Tord I covered back in the first installment of this column.
Created via stop-motion animation, The Burden features fish in a motel, mice working in fast food, telemarketing monkeys, and a lone canine shopping in a mega-mart. In each scenario, the lonely animals are searching for some kind of connection and eventual release in an increasingly convenient world (or should that be “convenient” in quotes?).

Charming, unpredictable, and surprisingly joyous.

SELECTED SHORTS II - CRITERION CHANNEL

The Criterion Channel, in addition to hosting a plethora of feature films, also has a varied collection of short films--live action, animated, fiction, documentary; comedy and drama; silent and talkies.

Short cinema--just like short stories--is a unique art form unto itself, employing different conventions, and bringing with it different expectations, but these pieces are no less worthy of consideration than full-length films. From time to time, I will take a look at a selection of what’s on offer. You can read the previous column here.

Lira’s Forest (2017; Canada; 9 minutes): An elderly woman on her front porch meets a boy wearing a fox mask, and he proves to be more than he appears. Simple in plot, a film of, essentially, only three or four actions, Connor Jessup’s tiny poem still manages to say something weighty about life and, more strikingly, relieving ourselves of our mortality. Beautifully shot, with no superfluous detail to speak of, it feels like a live action Hayao Miyazaki scene. I’d be curious what Jessup does with something more substantial.

(Note: Jessup is also the director of the Criterion Channel’s documentary on Apichatpong Weerasethakul.)

The Extraordinary Life of Rocky (2010; Belgium; 14 minutes): This black comedy about a boy who decides to give up loving his friends and family, believing that his affection is the reason everyone he cares about dies, aims for a tone and style not dissimilar to Jean-Pierre Jeunet, but its humor never sharpens and there’s no substitute for actual heart. Writer/director Kevin Meul has a whimsical eye for visuals, creating some fun rhymes throughout Life of Rocky (note how many times there is a helicopter of one kind or another), but it often feels like he accepted whimsical as being good enough rather than push his ideas further.

Daybreak Express (1943; USA; 6 minutes): Set to the music of Duke Ellington, documentarian D.A. Pennebaker’s art piece recreates the experience of a morning commute, capturing the light and the color of the city as the sun rises over the sky. More of a collage than a narrative, the montage nevertheless activates the right feelings, turning what was probably a daily slog for many workers into a thing of joyful beauty.

(Also available on the Criterion release of Pennebaker’s Bob Dylan documentary, Don’t Look Back [review].)

The Colour of His Hair (2017; United Kingdom; 22 minutes): A mix of documentary and fiction, The Colour of His Hair de-archives an unfinished script by Elizabeth Montague, written in 1964 for Britain’s Homosexual Law Reform Society. Montague’s brother, Lord Montague, had been involved in a high profile prosecution that sent him to jail for a year as punishment for being a practicing homosexual. The case sparked a movement in England to decriminalize being gay.

From what we see here, The Colour of His Hair looked to be a dramatic thriller, something along the lines of Basil Dearden’s Victim [review]. Two young lovers are being blackmailed and threatened with exposure if they don’t pay--a very real problem at the time. Though what exists of Montague’s script is just set-up, filmmaker Sam Ashby lends it gravity by splicing it together with archival footage about the Reform Society and testimony from men victimized in this way--both by opportunistic criminals and the law that empowered their crimes. At first I was hoping for less documentary and more story, but as Ashby carefully layers his narrative, including information about the Lesbian and Gay News Media Archive, where Montague’s script had been housed, he not only illustrates the heartache that many experienced, but the importance of the change that was brought about when the unctuous law was finally undone.

The Black Balloon (2012; USA; 21 minutes): A short from filmmaking brothers Josh and Ben Safdie (Good Time), The Black Balloon is the grown-up flipside to Albert Lamorisse’s children’s classic The Red Balloon [review]. In NYC, a gaggle of birthday balloons are accidentally released into the air, and a single black balloon drifts away from the pack. Searching for some kind of connection, someone to take its string and give it a life, the black balloon moves through the city, creating unique opportunities for various denizens of the metropolis to put it to use. One man (Larry “Ratso” Sloman, a collaborator of Bob Dylan and Howard Stern) instructs it to block a security camera so he can shoplift, another uses it to distract the daughter of his girlfriend, and a third to get the attention of his grown son. In each case, the adult abandons the balloon as soon as it served its purpose--the complete opposite of the little boy in The Red Balloon.

The Safdies have an agile shooting style that works well with the material and the locale. Stray, superfluous moments give a pretty good indication of how much the boys love New York, and you will marvel at how they pulled off some of the au naturale street scenes where the balloon bobs its way through the crowd. The characters all seem as if they are plucked straight from that mass, lending a credibility to what is otherwise a fanciful production. Though slight in its parts, the whole is effective.

(Side note: The Red Balloon enthusiasts should also check out Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Flight of the Red Balloon [review] to see an alternate update.)

Vingt-quatre heures de la vie d’un clown [Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Clown] (1946; France; 18 minutes): The first film from renowned auteur Jean-Pierre Melville is a long way from his more famous efforts like Le samourai [review] and Army of Shadows [review 1, 2]. This black-and-white documentary is exactly as advertised: a chronicle of what a famous clown, Beby, does between one night’s performance and the next. Narrated by Melville (there is little live sound), the film takes a rather lackadaisical approach to the reporting, embracing its subject and allowing for a little humorous staging--including an excellent sequence where Beby and his partner get inspiration from watching the mishaps of regular folks on the Parisian street (all staged, but don’t worry about it).

My favorite player, though, is Beby’s dog Swing, who goes wherever he goes. Try not to be completely charmed when Swing takes a prayer pose next to his master to say his blessings before bed. Just try!

(Note: Also available on the Criterion Collection release of Le silence de la mer, Melville’s feature-length debut.)