Validation

I had the pleasure of seeing this gem at the Phoenix Film Festival and I have to say that there are probably less then 1% of all short films made have the ability to make the audience well up with tears of happiness. That is precisely what this film did to me. Not only that. Whenever I tell someone about it I get the sense of welling up again just from re-telling it to them.

T.J. Thyne is perfectly cast as Hugh Newman, the uber-naive parking booth guy who works at the end of a darkly lit hallway and validates customers parking tickets while validating their lives at the same time. Just like any protagonist in a movie, he hits his roadblock and loses his mojo for a while but soon finds himself again, after he finds life taking him in another direction and gets back on the trail of making people's lives better. He finds out in the end that the good deeds had been doing for people in the past, that he thought were not changing anything or anybody, actually changed the lives of even the most hardened hearts and in turn find him the complete happiness that he had been searching for the whole time.

Kurt Kuenne did an AMAZING job with this film, period. From the finger-snappy acapella soundtrack to the directing, editing and cinematography; all of it is perfectly fit into this beautiful story. I only wish I could buy this movie on DVD. I've told so many people about it and wish I could show them! Hopefully soon!

A simple film who could be defined as motivational. in fact, it is more. a pledge for small gestures. delicate /brave words. about the change using simple tools. about honesty. and about the importance of the other. nothing complicated. but usefull. for the message. for the tears of the end. for the basic lesson about ordinary things - briks of every day reality. a nice film. and that is all.

A cheerful parking attendant considers it his job to do more than validate parking. He wants to validate the customers themselves, delivering compliments about their appearances and the inner qualities behind them. Everyone who comes up to him with a ticket walks away validated as a worthwhile human being. Soon, the parking attendant becomes so popular that people line up for validation. He appears on news broadcasts and even ends up validating George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein. His life hits a roadblock when he goes to the DMV to get his driver's license photo taken and is met with a beautiful photographer whom he can't get to smile.

As with "Rent-a-Person" (2004), writer-director Kurt Kuenne takes a thin joke and blows it up into a splashy (if low budget) black-and-white musical extravaganza. In fact, the man with the camera who makes a brief appearance in the earlier film, returns as the main character in this one, which we don't realize until we see the scene in which the two movies intersect.

This one is less extravagant, but I liked it a bit better - possibly because the toilet humor is gone.

"Validation" is a 16-minute short, but it packs a lot of story in those minutes. The protagonist appears to be a selfless guy, someone who exists only to provide happiness to others. But when he is unable to make a person happy, he loses his focus. Since this film is really about karma, his past deeds catch up with him and change his life. What follows is a fairytale ending, but "Validation" connects with so many people that it must have a ring of truth to many who view it.

The production values are good, and the editing is excellent. The soundtrack is integrated well into the story.

Can this film change lives? Perhaps. And that is really saying something.

Movies today seem to have difficulty making something happy. No matter how hard they try, it almost always comes off as being fake. This is where Validation comes in. A short film directed by Kurt Kuenne that oozes joy. And not the fake kind. By the end of this 17 minute film I was beaming. I was so happy that I immediately watched it a second time just to make sure I wasn't imagining it. I wasn't. Then I began showing it to every single person I could, and each one of them was smiling at the end. In fact, I have yet to see one single person who did not care for this movie, or did not feel great at the end of it.

The plot it simple, a man gives out free validation. Yes, the car kind. But he also throws in a bit of the other validation, and brightens the day of everyone he meets. Except as he is going out to get his drivers license renewed, he sees a girl and instantly falls in love. The only problem? She doesn't smile. I won't delve any deeper into the plot, but rest assured, it ends well.

The movie is filmed in black and white for no other reason than that it looks good. And after seeing the whole thing, you really couldn't imagine it in color. The music, to put it simply, is genius. An upbeat Gospel tune rings out throughout almost the entire movie, and every time I hear it I want to dance. The actors of course do a great job, overacted yes, but it's clearly on purpose.

Validation is a movie I believe everyone should see. It's funny, charming, and at the end of it all, a piece of joy. Look it up and watch it. I can guarantee you'll be glad you did.