Transfer

Canadian director David Cronenberg went on to put together a legendary body of work. His vision was so original, his movies so strong. This short film was his first effort and, well...it's a start I suppose! It basically has a man having an animated discussion with his psychiatrist in a field in the middle of the Canadian winter. Its technically raw, with clunky camerawork, hard to make-out sound and actors who must be friends. Quite what the overall point of it was, I am not entirely sure. In fairness, it is a student film and it is so short that it hasn't got time to truly try your patience. Interesting to see, yet very limited. At best it does display a certain surreal quality but its slim pickings in this one from Dave.

David Cronenberg's first film short already has the themes of alienation and psychiatry that will continue to show up for years to come.The Brood and Scanners are the most obvious examples of this. Images of a therapy session in a deserted snow filled vacant lot are striking. I saw this at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astora Queens with Stereo and Crimes of the future. Cronenberg has created thoughtful and unique films from the beginning. Transfer, a reference to the term for the feelings a client has for a therapist, is an interesting footnote for students of auteur theory and Cronenberg's strange body of work.

Cronenberg first short-movie. It is pretty enjoyable, only seven minutes, and looks like an exercise, a simple one, but good enough I dare to say.

You could say the whole movie has a pretty good atmosphere, by the chosen location, the sound recording seems noisy, but for the seven minutes, it gives some layer to the surroundings, although most likely the movie just had bad sound recording.

The story it is about a psychoanalyst that leaves all his patients and hides himself into a open, snowy, dreary field. One of his patients goes after him, when all the others found other doctors.

The encounter and their conversation feels more like a Monty Python sketch, and it feels more like it was an exercise of dialogue and a way to discuss the ideas Cronenberg was trying to think about at the time, which totally relate to his later body of work.

He sets two important ideas, the first one, is related with communication, the title of the movie reinforces that, the conflict it is on that movement, of trying to relate with others, and to try to speak out, to express yourself.

But this desire has consequences, which the psychoanalyst is not prepared to go through anymore, he says, an analyst has to dip his finger into the murky, forbidding, scrummy aquarium of the sick mind, Ralph!

In the end, Ralph and the Doctor talk about their definition about time in the subconscious, reinforcing even more the antagonism of the two characters, and showing that in his first work he was already exploring and trying to understand the unconscious and the human mind.

When he goes back to Jung and Freud in Dangerous Method, he is back where he is started in 1966.

David Cronenberg is a very interesting director, one unlike any other. Not one of my all-time favourites, but most of his work ranges from above average to outstanding. My favourites, talking about films for now, from him being 'The Fly', 'Dead Ringers', 'Eastern Promises', 'A History of Violence' and a toss up between 'The Brood' and 'Spider'. And my least favourites being 'Stereo', 'Crimes of the Future', 'Cosmopolis' and 'Maps to the Stars'.

'Transfer' is most interesting for being Cronenberg's first short film and his first work. Other than that and completest sake (wanting to see as much of his work as possible), there is not an awful lot going for it and do feel bad for saying that, being an admirer. Every Cronenberg effort is watchable, even if just the once, 'Transfer' for me is a lesser work of his and with not enough to make me want to see it again. A couple of nice thematic touches that Cronenberg introduced, but he explored them much better later.

It looks surprisingly decent for such early Cronenberg, actually looking better than a couple of his early films (i.e. 'Shivers', 'Rabid') and having a suitable amount of eeriness. The photography and editing do not look amateurish.

Some nice quirkiness here and there and the feeling of loneliness is suitably mysterious and oddly moving.

Cronenberg's direction shows inexperience however and does have the feeling of a student film that barely passes when assessed. The story, for something so short, really lacked lustre and can perplex more than intrigue. Like his lesser efforts, 'Transfer' felt very clinical and emotionally distant, one of not much of his work to not make me feel anything.

Didn't find that the dialogue flowed very well as it should and was delivered stiffly, that was when one can hear it. As one of the short's biggest problems is agreed the awful sound.

Summarising, a failure but not an unwatchable or uninteresting one. 4/10

Transfer (1966)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This six minute short was the first work of director David Cronenberg. The story is quite simple as a doctor is in the middle of nowhere when a patient shows up. The doctor explains that he put his office in the middle of the wilderness because he wanted to be left alone.

While there's nothing ground-breaking about this short and there's certainly nothing here to show that Cronenberg would go onto achieve what he did, the film still manages to be slightly entertaining just due to how it's set up. I really liked the visuals of the film and I thought the director did a good job at showing off the loneliness of the environment. The film has a few neat ideas and the director certainly keeps the film entertaining.