Timecode

Timecode (2016)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This Spanish short has Luna (Lali Ayguade) working the day shift at a parking garage. At night it's Diego (Nicholas Ricchini) doing the same job. One day Luna checks the monitors from the night before and notices Diego doing some sort of strange dance, which leads to the two of them having some fun with one another.

TIMECODE not only received an Oscar-nomination for Best Short Film but it also won the Palme d'Or for the Best Short. I'm not going to sit here and say this is a bad movie because it isn't but at the same time I'm failing to see why it's gotten so much praise from certain areas. It's certainly charming and the two leads are quite good but it really didn't strike me as something that you'd consider great. I think the film benefits from the charm of the two lead actors and their dances are mildly entertaining. Outside of that I just didn't see anything overly spectacular about the picture.

Greetings again from the darkness. Talk about a tough sell … a short film from Spain about two parking garage security guards! Remarkably, director Juanjo Gimenez Pena takes a job known for being monotonous, isolated and boring, and delivers a very entertaining 15 minute film. Not only was it named Best Short Film at Cannes, but it's also nominated for Best Live Action Short at this year's Academy Awards.

Lali Ayguade plays Luna, who works the day shirt. Nicolas Ricchini plays Diego, who takes care of the night shift. Their paths cross briefly and nonchalantly as they move from dressing room to the chair in front of the CCTV camera monitors.

A pure coincidence allows Luna to discover a secret about Diego's work habits. Soon enough a flirtatious mating dance is occurring shift after shift … with no more than a post-it note and a few basic salutations being exchanged. It's a simple and cute feel good film with a killer punchline, and it's also a lesson in how to liven up the most mundane of occupations.

Luna works a rather boring job at a parking garage. The payments are all automated and all she does is watch the lot on her monitors as well as occasionally patrolling the lot. However, when her boss asks her to review footage from the night before, she discovers that her co-worker working the other shift is behaving very strangely as he makes his rounds…and Diego inspires Luna to have an all new outlook on her job.

This is a cute but rather inconsequential film. I am not saying it's bad, but it's by far the weakest of the five nominees and won't change your life. I am actually very surprised the short was nominated. However, I also have to admit that the final line of the film is hilarious and makes it all very worthwhile.

You have to be a true cinephile to stay out until 11:30 PM on a weekday to see a program of not just short films but short foreign-language films ... after one of them had already been chosen as the Oscar winner (removing any benefit of winning your Oscar prediction pool!).

I'm proud to say there were about 30 of us at my local art-house cinema tonight. All five of the nominated films were very good, but we broke into applause after just one -- TIMECODE.

If you see a lot of movies (Friday I'll see my 100th film released in 2016), you place a high value on seeing a story you had never seen before or even imagined. Other reviewers acknowledge how delightful the film is, but they seem to be indifferent to the fact that the very premise is delightful.

And finally, unlike some of the other contenders, there isn't an ounce of predictability, sentimentality, or credulity-straining plotting. It starts out fresh and surprising, and remains so at every turn.