I'm a huge fan of short films. In many ways they are much harder to make than features. Having to tell a story in less time forces minds to get creative, to be succinct and precise, to not waste time and get to the point quickly and efficiently. WSFF 09 offered up some great ones.
The Spine, dir. Chris Landreth
Chris Landreth won an Oscar for his first short animated feature, Ryan. His second shows that his first was not just beginner's luck. The Spine is a surreal puzzle, where Landreth examines psychological trauma in a group therapy session. Gordon Pinsent voices Dan, a man seemingly smothered by his wife Mary. The various members of the therapy group have differing problems expressed physically: one person appears to be two different people sewn together, the therapist is a large hand, and the skin of Dan's face and head are coming off like the pieces of a puzzle. Landreth examines the transformation of Dan after his wife leaves him, and his eventual dissolution. Landreth has an innate understanding of the effect of a person's mental state upon their body, and exaggerates this to tremendous effect. Landreth explores all sides to the story. The animation forces the audience to examine their own minds, and imagine the color of their own spines, and how their mental problems might manifest physically. A haunting film.
The Water, dir. Kevin Drew
Ontario Gothic is a very distinct branch of gothic literature/film. Ontario does not have ancient estate homes or rolling moors. Ontario has cabins and frozen lakes and endless wilderness. Musician Kevin Drew has crafted a film that never fully explains what is going on. But this is unimportant. It is a film of mood as oppose to story, a perfect recipe for a short. Veteran Canadian actor David Fox and Irish actor Cillian Murphy are (supposedly) a father and son who pull a mummified body off a frozen lake. It is unwrapped and thawed to reveal a young woman (Leslie Feist). Is she Murphy's mother? Sister? Potential lover? How long has she been frozen, and why has she been awakened now? This film provides questions, but no answers. But the audience is so wrapped up in atmosphere it doesn't matter.
Love You More, dir. Sam Taylor-Wood
It's hard not to remember the first time you had sex For most of us, it probably happened with little warning and was over so quickly it was hard to believe it actually had finally happened. Taylor-Wood finds the intimate moments: the look of the boy as he gazes at the girl's shoes under her school desk; the sound of the burning joint; the movement of the dial on the rotary phone; the clink of beer bottles. A boy and a girl discover each other over a punk album and go all the way fairly quickly, while the record player spins the song over and over. It's a sensuous reminder of the first time for sex, and perhaps a bit of love as well.
One of Those Days, dir. Hattie Dalton
Dante saw Hell as infinite and worsening circles; Sartre said hell is other people; the Greeks saw hell as a strange underground cavern. For Dalton, hell is British civil bureaucracy. Derek Jacobi and Joanna David are a middle-aged British couple on Judgement Day, trying to make their way through queues and hallways and brochures on the rights of the gluttonous to clear up a clerical error that might send them to the burning fires instead of Heaven. Is it possible to lead a blameless life with the exception of internet porn? Satan doesn't think so.
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