So, while Ugh-bama has become the President 2.0, Milan Kundera is being tortured by his past and the students at my university are still lamenting about the crappiness of the school, I have nothing better to do than finally commenting on the last of the short films. After all, the world is bad, because WordPress has killed my post again. Well, at least a new start from scratch might make it possible for me to write a better posting, who knows?
Une femme de bien bonne humeur (Canada 2007, 10:37)
I must admit that I liked the style to a certain extent, especially the white eye-mask at the beginning of the movie looked pretty cute. However, as soon as she started dancing weirdly, and especially when her friends came and she gave them la bise with such enthusiasm, I realized that this story totally was not my style at all.
Le Secret de Salomon (France 2007, 19:00)
It took me quite awhile to write about this short film, because it feels like I should say a lot about it, but I just can’t. It’s one of these stories that was really, really good: Witty, original and a great end. Its greatness can’t even be described without spoilering too much of the story. Amazingly, it actually got an honourable mention in the competition, along with Careful with that Axe.
Fêlures (France 2008, 9:00)
The animation style makes it look somewhat canadian in my book, haha. But really, the tango scenes were pretty good-looking and fit perfectly into the frame of the splitted glass. However, the whole storyline around it and the plant-hugging was perhaps original, but not particuarily interesting for me.
Train Town (USA 2007, 15:00)
Oh oh, a political satire! This was really funny somehow, and so questionable, hehe. I must say that I kind of disliked both of them, given how exaggerated they were as characters, and so the resolution of the conflict between them left me a little unsatisfied. But even without an explosive confrontation it was quite a good black comedy.
Flashed (Scotland 2008, 4:52)
Oh, a scottish movie, heh. Since the photo box said “Automat”, somehow I automatically assumed that it was german, I wonder why!
Anyways, it’s a short story without much content, but the punchline was pretty nice. All in all, an enjoyable short film that felt more like 2 rather than 5 minutes.
High Hopes (Finland 2007, 13:50)
This film looked like it’s never going to end. It’s about two inventor parents wanting to educate their child to fly – what the heck. The whole thing looked very stylish (I have a certain weakness for the steampunk style after all), but that’s it. The story went from boring to infuriating.
Next Floor (Canada 2008, 11:34)
Another black comedy, huh. This one was much less political though, it only had one single premise: A bunch of gluttunous guests around a table filled with luxurious and heavy meals cracks through the floor because of the weight of what they consumed. This happens multiple times throughout the whole story.
I know that the film can be interpreted as very meaningful (people have no end at consuming things without considering anything else). It also is somewhat funny how the cleanly dressed waiters call “Next floor”, rush to run down one floor and continue to serve even more food. But I wasn’t really able to enjoy that cold atmosphere somehow, I just don’t like disgusting looking food?
La Curiosa Conquista del Ampere (Mexico 2008, 11:00)
By the time they showed this short film, it was around 1 am, so I’m glad that I have seen it a second time in the MEX 01 program. To save the last two films which I didn’t really like, the very last film would have needed to be a blast like “Le Secret de Salomon” which unfortunately it wasn’t. So I might have judged the sad ending of the story a bit too harshly. It was quite a good film, really.
Finally, even though there are some films I really feel an urge to see (“War and Peace”, “Three Colours Blue”) and there are some others I have lying around (“The Magnificent Ambersons”, “Rome Open City”, “On connaît la chanson”), these marathons of movies somehow made me want to stop watching movies for awhile. I need something different… I am actually craving for some intellectual challenges and felt really happy when I saw that the next homework assignment was online, hahaha. Now I have something productive for tomorrow to do, yay!