Fantastic Fest chose not to do a shorts program this year, opting instead to open many of the feature films with a short. Many of the shorts ran too long which got to be annoying at times. I hope next year they’ll reign this in a bit. Here’s my top five shorts:
The Tale of How
My favorite by far of the shorts. I think this should have won the FF award for best animated short but that honor went to the overlong and belaboured Everything Will Be OK by Don Hertzfeldt. I could try to explain the plight of the weird birds living in a tree growing on a giant octopus’ back, but fortunately, the animators have put it up on YouTube. Watch it here. Turn up the audio to hear the choral narration. The Blackheart Gang have also provided an interesting little making of documentary too. I look forward to seeing the other two parts to their epic.
Waiting for Yesterday (Demain la Veille)
A stunning French scifi short with some really clever motion tricks. Bob lives an ordinary life like everyone else. Ordinary because his life runs backwards just like it is supposed to. Then Bob bumps into a stranger who lives in forward-moving time. Bob life is wrecked when he too starts living in forward time and realizes that the whole world is being manipulated. Then foot soldiers working for who or whatever is doing this notice Bob….
Some of the special effects are done via simple reversal, but there are many points where complex compositing and/or really difficult physical acting come into play. Seriously, running backward up stairs? That’s good stuff!
The Ecstasy Note
A sick little comedy piece. Coming in at twenty-five minutes, Note is one of the few "long shorts" that actually felt much shorter than it actually was. Average schlub, Henford, works at an institute for the deaf, hiding from his wife who clearly loves their dog more than him. After accidentally killing the dog, his wife plunges a fork into his hand. But when she hammers it deeper with a knife the ringing tone drives her to ecstasy. Dirt poor after the divorce, Henford soon finds he can capitalize on this unusual note. But once the whole city is hooked, quitting the business may be tough to do. There’s some clunky acting in places but the production is top notch and the story itself is delightfully twisted.
Un-Gone
This British scifi short addresses the perils of teleportation. A couple prepare to emigrate via the TransTrip teleporters. But even teleportation travel can have problems, and those problems must be cleaned up. While the paradox presented won’t be new to scifi aficionados, it is executed very well and the last line is perfect.
In the Wall
A nice creepy, Tales from the Crypt style horror short by former Austinite, Mike Williamson. Here an unfaithful husband accidentally kills his pregnant wife. He hides the body inside the wall of their apartment. But life always finds away, even after death. This is straight up horror that hands out the creepies in spades.