shnit! 2014. Shorts in the color of fuchsia.
Flaming with the rose colored stage lights the new twelfth edition of shnit! film festival has begun. While the opening ceremony lead up in baroque church of The Holy Ghost, performed some pearls of festival’s international programming (from Sisyphus, intensed by its organ music score played in the right place to one really scaring irish horror The Ghost Train, that was seen in the most infernal perspective), the sacred ancient building was not the only unusual spot for this festival edition. The colored circus marquee (called non ambitiously The Tent), placed on the summer terrace of the cultural centre, the auditorium of the centre itself, another church, this time gothic French church, theatre hall and the ancient corn cellar. Such kind of spaces removes movies from it’s original context of cinema hall and traditional movie watching (thought I might say that for short films the average movie goer is reduced by the screen of his laptop and a simple big screen projection is already an enormous opportunity).
Now it’s a time to move from the ambience that makes the festival special to its context, that should make it even more special. The films spreads in a numerous variety of genres and styles but still one can catch some tendencies and common subjects. I can start with the remark that is pretty unusual for the description of the festival program — that is the fact that the most of the movies are really entertaining and suitable for all public. Even creepy, sad and tensed films have its limits for not to become terrifying, disgusting or intolerable. For example, even one of the programs named Feel Good, consisted of some “heartwarming” movies that represent the ambience of weekend brunch. Though the shorts really held this optimistic view, some of them are still not so dearing. In Mute, animated short, filmmakers present the world of sympathetic cartoon characters, that having no mouth therefore the can not produce any sound even they would want to. But finally thanks to, let’s here speak directly, unfortunate circumstances, they receive the way to possess a voice. Since than the mignion cartoon turns to massacre that shows you more artificial blood than do some of Scorsese’s movies. Nevertheless, Mute remains on the top of the festival program due to its precious to the shorts quality to put the high standard scenario about the liberation in a few minutes picture.
Another film, that should make you “feel good” but can make you rather sad, is the french Where were you when Michael Jackson died? Two people meet on the street to quarrel with each other, to have a scandal before decide who will be the passenger of a rear night taxi, to get in touch with teenage criminals and hopefully avoid the punch-up and finally to discus where they were when Michael Jackson died. The title marks a shift from just a random interest to the privacy of sensational friendship. This story of imaginary misalliance could be continued into Louis Malle’s Les Amants, but was too short and gave no time for spectator to feel the compassion for the heroine so unpleasantly presented since the first shorts. So the film leaves us uncompleted towards the personalities and actions of two main characters and at the end turns to the plot of Besson’s Taxi (or Refn’s Drive, how the film declared with ambition).
On each film short film festival there is a place for social teenage dramas, probably due to the young age of the largest part of presented directors. Shnit! was not an exclusion, but presented this genre on examples of extremely good quality. This can be said about brother Dardennes’ inspired Sunny, the story of young guy from the lower class, who faced his obligation as a father of a baby and try to find the first job in his life. While we are worrying each moment about the life of the baby, his teenage father is presented in a flew of his fulfilled life — techno parties between suburban buildings, fights with russian immigrants or just chilling with friends on petrol stations. Without any doubts we can mention L’enfant of Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne as a source of inspiration for this short, but this story turns out in much more positive way. For those who prefer to face the cruel reality in all its reveals, the programming of shnit! prepares another british movie Babe, that speaks about a girl who wanted to become a kind of “million dollar baby” from Eastwood’s film and for this purpose even stole the boxing bag from neighborhood’s gym. But under the power of circumstances neither she herself, no the men from her family can protect her from imprudence and violence.
Another terrifying and therefore remarkable movie from the program, Killing Auntie, introduces a polish director Mateusz Glowacki. The story of a young man, left alone in his ascetic apartment and suffering from various and horrifying hallucinations (with a good part of black humor though) reminds me a classic film made by another polish director. Here I speak about The Repulsion by Roman Polanski. This film, considered as one of the peak of horror cinema talks about a young girl, left in the flat alone with approaching crisis of schizophrenia. At the same time a young guy from Killing Auntie has some common characteristics with another Polanski’s hero from The Tenant as well as the characters of intrusive neighbors and the scene when the main hero jumps out of the window, the first time and another one, and again.
The irish horror The Ghost Train reveals the tradition of japanese thrillers in other island country with right handed circulation. At first pretending to be another part of Final Destination, it becomes a drama from the life of middle-aged men and finally turns to the story of the grudge of freaky looking ghost. The film is remarkable, mostly because the ambience is very good, though the script is not “extremely” creative and mostly predictable, but often it’s not the necessary thing to create a good horror.
This is quiet subjective representation from the large shnit! program, that included much more shorts, animation and even a few documentaries. Soon it will be possible to check which film(s) became a “coup de cœur” for the international jury and audience. Mine is The Kármán line, the story about the respectable mother of the family who lost the force of gravity and flew up into the universe. So, let’s see what will be the next shnit’s winner — will this movie make us feel good, feel bad or feel ugly ?
