Zombie Zombie: Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free (2008) dir. Simon Gesrel and Xavier Ehretsmann

****

The geekout discovery of the year occurred this week at the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto. In festival’s annual ‘Scene not Heard’ program devoted to music videos, the last film to screen was an ejaculation of 80’s fandom – a fan made video for the French electronic band Zombie Zombie, inspired by John Carpenter’s “The Thing” acted out entirely by stop motion GI Joe figures.

I kid you not, this is real.

In the opening after a neat old school movie logo, the film sets the scene, “Antarctica 1983”, an overhead shot of a group of snowsuit wearing scientists gather to extract a piece of ice from the ground. One of the scientists is ‘Snow Job’ the skiing G.I. Joe character from the early 80’s. Yes, I now know this is real.

When the group brings the ice sample back to add to their historical collection of ice pieces, little do they know a virus of some sort is embedded inside, After some melting the virus is released into the air and into vodka bottle of the Dreadnok 'Buzzer'. Buzzer starts stalking the other scientists much like the shapeshifting 'Thing'. The group fight back with all means necessary, flame throwers, shot guns and finally a self-sacrificial explosion of dynamite.

While it’s not a remake of “The Thing”, most likely for logistical reasons, the homage and reverence to Carpenter is clear. Right down to Rob Bottin’s nasty creature effects, the set design of the camp and interior art direction of the base, the digitized film scratches, even the choice of music, a monotonous electronic piece, resembles the same tone as Ennio Morricone’s great score.

The articulate ‘swivel arm battle grip’ which for serious GI Joe players back in the day allowed kids like me to create realistic scenes of battle in the sandbox, on film also makes for surprisingly realistic stop motion characters.

Co-Directors Ehretsmann and Gesrel pull some great tension out of these plastic figures, and full fledged story. They are not just geeking out entirely, their visual eye, shot selection and storytelling abilities are acutely apparent in this brief six mins of fun - which, something tells me will be more enjoyable than the Stephen Somers' GI Joe movie coming out soon.

There’s no real need to write any more, because the film is available in its entirety on youtube. Here it is:

Next Floor (2008) dir. Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Jean Marchand, Mathieu Handfield, Emmanuel Schwartz, Sébastien René

****

Though only 11mins, Denis Villeneuve's 'Next Floor' stands tall as a magnificent visually stunning allegory to class struggle told with a wickedly dark sense of humour. Villeneuve channels the absurd and surreal metaphors of Luis Bunuel with the visually grandness of Terry Gilliam to create a unique artistic masterpiece."Next Floor" has been gathering awards at various festivals since last year's Cannes Film Festival, and this week opened the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto.

On the highest floor of a tall building a group of black tie dressed aristocrats have assembled for a pampered meal, complete with formally dressed waitstaff and a three piece orchestra. The meal, gluttonous over-the-top helpings of prepared animals - beef, pork, ham, birds, even a rhinoceros. When signaled to eat the guests proceed to gorge with ravenous carnage, shoveling the food into their mouths like starving hynenas. Suddenly the room starts to shake, and the whole dinner table and its guests literally fall through the floor to the level below. After a brief moment the guests simply brush themselves off keep eating, with the staff quickly running down the stairs to catch up. As more food gets served and the guests continue to eat, the floor is just not strong enough to keep the weight of the table, thus sending them down floor by floor to the bottom.

There's a number of fun influences on display in this piece. Using the building as the metaphor for the plummeting disgrace of these upper class twits perhaps borrows from JG Ballard's novel 'High Rise'. As the dinner table drops a floor lower and lower so does their dignity. With each drop both the individuals and the food they eat becomes drenched in broken plaster, wood, and drywall dust. Yet they keep eating. While most of the tension comes from the waitstaff anticipating when the floor will break, there's a hint that the group might just stop eating, and that the host just might just lose some kind of bet - how long these fools can keep stuffing themselves oblivious to their impending deaths.

Villeneuve tells the story with little dialogue, just the monotonous sounds of the shoveling of food and the scraping of metal on the plates. Villeneuve projects a classical and mannered tone of deadpan humour. No matter what happens to the group, the staff and orchestra continue to play like cold robotic unemotional servants. The music is an aggressive and violent series of heavy drum pounding, like an army going to battle, complimenting the theme of passive aggressive class struggle.

Villeneuve's cast is made up of some marvelously distinct faces. The most interesting is the Maitre D, played by Jean Marchand who is introduced with a magnificent bold close-up lit with texture by DOP Nicolas Bolduc. His bald head and course face and angular facial features shows us supreme professional with resolute determination to serve these guests to the very end.

On a technical level production values sore in the short medium. Villeneuve and his crew were given access to a Heritage building in Montreal set for renovation, and allowed to destroy and demolish at will. And so, despite some carefully placed CG effects, much of the destruction in the film is real. As mentioned, Nicolas Bolduc's cinematography, shot in anamorphic 35mm is a triumph, purposeful underlit with David Fincher-like crispness, showing all the details of Jean-Marc Renaud's gritty art direction. The handsome production is aided by sharp editing and music composition for maximum spectacle and entertainment.

Despite the technical achievement, "Next Floor" is a comedy, a dark satire on the level of Peter Greenaway, Terry Gilliam and Jean-Pierre Jeunet/Marc Caro. But it's perhaps the absurd surrealism of those great Luis Bunuel films, like "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" and "The Phantom of Liberty" where the film links up best. But like all influences mentioned above "Next Floor" is a sociologically thought-provoking and wholly unique artistic cinematic statement.

"Next Floor" continues to tour the world. Unfortunately, I'm not sure where and when this will be available to find on DVD. But I'll when a link of some sort becomes available I will post it here

Abbie Cancelled (2009) dir. Jessica Burnstein, Robbie Norris
Live Action Short

***1/2

Amir and Amanda are in the car on their way to a dinner party when they get a call from their friend Abbie that she has cancelled at the last minute. The party continues as a foursome, a night of squirm-inducing awkwardness. It all makes for a surprising astute situational comedy. Norris and Burnstein capture the common early midlife crisis of late twenty-something middle class yuppies. Amanda's career envy of Karen makes for some fine awkward comedy as well as an engaging emotional revelation from Karen. Meanwhile Grayson and Amir, bond like bros while sniffing gasoline together in the basement. The mix of absurd and situational realism make ‘Abbie Cancelled’ a fine example of the short film medium.



Copper on the Chopping Block (2009) dir. Kai Orion
Live Action Short

**

A man lives alone in the woods. He calls his girlfriend who doesn’t answer, he kills his cat with some poison in the sauna, he chops some wood, he’s drinks beer, he chops some wood again, he lights firecrackers. Twelve minutes later these banal actions lead up to a violent action. Despite giving away little information, “Copper on the Chopping” is an ultimately predictable effort. Predictable in the sense that it falls into the common trappings for short films – audience unfriendly naval gazing.



Little Canyon (2009) dir. Olivia Silver
Live Action Short

**1/2

A newly separated father and his three kids drive away from their home to a new life in Los Angeles. From the point of view of the youngest daughter we feel the pain of the disillusionment of a family. Writer/Director Silver shows competence with storytelling and a reasonable assured visual style. She pulls some natural and believable performances from her young actors, especially young Tessa Allen. Unfortunately it’s a subject that doesn’t fit the short film format. There’s just not enough time to find the truth with the characters. Silver likely has a feature film version of this story in her head, and the pacing of her short reflects this. While it’s a decent calling card, it makes for a mostly dreary short film.