Short Takes on Shorts
A look at six of the short films that shaped the Berlinale Shorts Competition.
LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH
New technologies keep offering possibilities to filmmakers to express their feelings through art. The different films that were selected for this year’s Berlinale Shorts competition showed these new approaches.
The Berlinale Shorts II programme contained of six films. They were quite different in form, but there were some striking similarities between them when it comes to content. Several were concerned with the status of society, such as PARADISE LATER by Ascan Bauer (Austria-Germany), DERBY by Paul Negoescu (Romania) and A PERM by Lee Ran-hee (Korea). While Negoescu's film approaches this theme only in a general way through consumerism, Bauer's short embraces it. His conceptual documentary shows some striking images filmed in Jakarta, along the Ciwilung River, while a narrator is quoting some passages from “Heart of Darkness”. Joseph Conrad's novel here is used to both match the images (detritus in the river, for instance) or to contrast them. Bauer's film definitely refers to literature (the title stems from John Milton's poem). On the other hand, A PERM treats society in a subtle way (through the use of mirrors and metaphors), by dealing with appearances, superficiality and how to be accepted when you are different.
Also selected were SUHAKSIHUM by Jung Yumi (Korea), EL SEGUNDO AMENECER DE LA CEGUERA by Mauricio Franco Tosso (Spain) and LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH by Nicolas Provost (Belgium). The first one, a two minute long animated film, shows a girl literally overwhelmed by her thoughts. Although it only relies on a single idea, the film is beautifully animated, funny and refreshing. Love story EL SEGUNDO AMENECER DE LA CEGUERA makes it hard to care for the characters. The film was originally intended to be distributed through the web and cell phones. Therefore it uses a particular format, the frames are vertical, like cell phone camera images. Although this is all supposed to emphasize the dramatic tension, the trick does not achieve its goal, and the film lacks an emotional implication.
Finally, the most puzzling short – or, at least, the most enervating one – remains LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH. Artist Nicolas Provost made a compilation of famous horror films, such as ALIEN and THE THING, which he mashed up by cutting them up. Provost mainly focuses on gory scenes, which he “sculpts” by pixelating and diffusing the colours. Rather than “transcending” the genre – as Provost wanted to – the latter just ruins it. The evident tribute to David Cronenberg is self-destructive, since it will not help horror, a genre still often despised, to get the recognition it deserves.
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