For a few minutes, you get some nicely framed, crisp images of a pretty house. The wide angle gives you a decent view and the scene is set in promising fashion. We know the film is going to be about absence, so the wide frame leaves room for absence - and for stillness. Yet still, … Continue reading Cuatro Paredes (Review)
Tag: short
Blackberrying (Review)
This enthralling mix of raw realism and uncanny surrealism makes for an evocative portrait of loss. By carefully balancing a sense of fantasy and reality, the filmmakers effortlessly convey the complex idea that grief can often feel unreal. Actual loss is so hard to deal with that our emotive recollections of those who have left … Continue reading Blackberrying (Review)
Stump the Guesser (Review)
This 2020 short from Maddin, Johnson and Johnson feels like it comes from a parallel reality. This is true of both the craft and the narrative, both consistently surreal and beguiling. The result of this is an uproariously fun twenty minutes, in the hands of people with astonishing visual animations, that takes you on an … Continue reading Stump the Guesser (Review)
Citadel (Review)
The short film shot from a filmmaker’s room during lockdown has already become somewhat of a cliché (Mati Diop’s In My Room being a highlight of the genre). This view out of a London window during Covid lockdown fits firmly into that category, but filmmaker John Smith adds a political edge that makes this stand … Continue reading Citadel (Review)
Cold Meridian (Review)
The new ASMR based short film from Peter Strickland is exactly what you would expect. Exactly what you would expect in that it is almost indescribably strange and uniquely compelling - as all things Strickland are. With films like The Duke of Burgundy and In Fabric, Strickland has established himself as one of the most … Continue reading Cold Meridian (Review)
Nimic (Review)
Legendarily odd filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite, The Lobster and Dogtooth) delivers a characteristically bizarre short. Feeling like a direct descendant of Possession, this atonal and abstract tale of doppelgängers and replacement is a twisted delight. Matt Dillon (one of the very few good things about The House that Jack Built) stars as a passive … Continue reading Nimic (Review)
In My Room (Review)
Towards the start of Mati Diop's (director of the fantastic feature, Atlantics) lockdown based short film, we see her writing an email in which she is explaining her pitch for the film we are watching. It's playfully meta, yet also incredibly vérité, and sets the tone for the rest of the film. We are seeing … Continue reading In My Room (Review)
The Long Goodbye (2020)
This collaboration between director and co-writer, Aniel Karia, and star and co-writer, Riz Ahmed is an incendiary short about racism in Britain. Though it only spans twelve minutes, it's an expansive project with an impact far wider than its diminutive running time. It's another example of the power of short film: refined storytelling that is … Continue reading The Long Goodbye (2020)
Anima (Review)
Two of my favourite things, Paul Thomas Anderson and Radiohead, have often proven themselves to be great tastes that go well together (check out those music videos!). With Anima, this relationship has deepened into a collaborative project between PTA and Thom Yorke, resulting in a short film (or 'one reeler' as PTA is calling it) … Continue reading Anima (Review)
Assorted Opinions 