The latest set of short films that have crossed my path.
Cooked
I haven’t covered any animated films before, but the voice cast for Cooked was
just too irresistible, featuring as it does Katherine Parkinson, Stephen Mangan
and David Morrissey. And I’m glad I did as this tale of an everyday love
triangle between a walrus, a lobster and a seal by German animators Jens &
Anna is just adorable. My limited experience in the field makes the comparison
with Aardman’s work a little lazy but it really does have some of the same fresh
and quirky sense of humour about it and visually it looks really impressive, using
a variety of techniques to create something that feels nicely different. At
barely six minutes long, you should definitely give this a watch.
Albert’s Speech
The beauty of short film-making is that it really can liberate the creative
side of things without too great an element of risk and so it is always great
to see people utilising its potential. Albert’s Speech, a film by Richard
Fenwick, is one of those films, mixing live action with all kinds of animation
to make this tale of a best man’s pre-speech nerves into something much more
fascinating and funny as Albert – a sweatily convincing Nicholas Burns – runs through
permutations of what could go wrong and possibilities of escape in the moments
before he is due to speak at his best friend’s wedding. Fenwick, who also
directs, shows a huge amount of imagination in filling his film with a large
array of brilliant touches, including some just tiny details, which make up
quite an endearing watch.
Spiralling
Antony & the Johnsons are one of my favourite bands and so using one of
their songs – the Spiralling of the title – sets standards extremely high but
it soon becomes clear that the soundtrack to Nick Hillel and Max Pugh’s film is
a carefully selected collection of some great tunes which really match its
hard-hitting content. Devised by Pugh in collaboration with the National Youth
Theatre, it’s a slow-burning, nerve-tensing portrayal of a relationship between
a teenage schoolgirl and a slightly older boy which soon deteriorates into the
murky world of domestic violence.
David Judge is powerfully effective as a young man unafraid to manipulate physically,
emotionally, sexually and Sophie Willcox-Jones balances Lucy’s naïveté with
enough teenage nous to make her a sadly all-too-believable character. The scenes
with the supporting cast sometimes betray the youth theatre origins but there’s
a great cameo from Zawe Ashton as an eventual confidante and Tia Matthews as
the best friend who gets pushed out of the picture. It’s a little lengthy but
it is an important story which needs the room to breathe and Hillel and Pugh
maintain interest with a range of expressionist shots interspersed into the
narrative to make this a worthy film to take a moment to engage with.
When the Hurlyburly’s Done
Whether it is actually the case or not, When The Hurlyburly’s Done from 2010
looks like a properly big budget affair. The design and its overall look is
hugely impressive and it really feels like a teaser from a full feature film
rather than a 12 minute short. And suitably, it has an epic sweep to its story featuring
an illicit affair, a dying woman and a promise to love beyond death. It may
sound a little melodramatic but it is powerfully told by writer/directors Hanna
Maria Heidrich and Alex Eslam and in a cleverly prescient bit of casting,
Damien Molony appears pre-Being Human but tackling the exact kind of moral
dilemma that Hal dealt with on a weekly basis. He carries off the role
extremely well, with Fiona Hampton as the blood-soaked woman whose fate rests
in his hands. A proper bit of drama to round off this collection.
Labels: Damien Molony, Daniel Ings, David Morrissey, David Mumeni, Film, Fiona Hampton, George Taylor, Josie Daxter, Katherine Parkinson, Nicholas Burns, Stephen Mangan, Stuart Laing, Zawe Ashton, Zoë Tapper