Doodlebug

Doodlebug (1997)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Christopher Nolan's directorial debut was this three minute B&W short. The film starts off with a man on the floor bouncing around trying to kill a bug with his shoe. He tries and tries to kill it but soon we realize something else is going on.

DOODLEBUG was a highly effective short that reminded me of the early work of David Lynch. The B&W cinematography perfectly captures a rather dark and moody atmosphere and I thought it certainly helped the film and its nightmare like quality. I'm not going to spoil the twist for those who haven't seen the film but I found it to be very good. Technically speaking this is a very impressive short and especially when you consider it was the first one Nolan had made. It certainly shows that there was a talent behind the camera. Fans of his should get a kick out of this film.

And it honestly isn't that bad. Christopher Nolan accomplished a mediocre twist (that's still a twist) in 3 minutes without using any words at all. I'm gonna do something else now instead of writing a summary that takes over 3 minutes.

A man in a white shirt seems obsessed with killing an insect. He moves around, fixated only on this one thing. When he finally corners it, things get really weird. This seems to be an experiment on a single note, but because it is over and done with so quickly, we don't have time to be too critical.

A word of advice. Watch this movie straightaway without reading anything about it. Most of the plot summaries you'll go through will mostly end up ruining the movie for you. Its incredibly short (about 3 minutes) so even if it ends up sucking for you, it wouldn't have in any way hurt to devote 3 minutes to what I find a great start for a by now famous and master craftsman Nolan. Heck even a visit to the loo takes more time so giving 3 minutes to this movie without any second thought shouldn't be hard enough. Let the bug surprise you.

Doodlebug came to my attention when doing a bit of research (that isn't the right term but I'll stick to it anyway) on Christopher Nolan now that his final movie in the Batman trilogy is about to hit out. It appears he made two more shorts before this of which one named Larceny, I've heard a lotta praises about but sadly couldn't manage to get my hands on it anywhere. So I decided to started my Nolan filmography with this one. For the meager amount of money, this movie is quite a watch. Excellent camera-work, nice editing which keeps the movie flowing smoothly (and not much like Nolan's later non-linear works), good effects for a short (that's just me though) and a decent performance make this worth a watch. Now I don't exactly know what messages this movie wished to convey but I do know that those were some entertaining and insightful 3 minutes into what was to come in the future from this guy. Following's up next for sure.

Christopher Nolan is hands-down my favorite director so I had high expectations for this film. I was immensely disappointed with the confusing story that seemed to have no answer. It stood as a metaphor for something that needed no metaphor. It was interesting, but unfortunately not a masterpiece like much of his other work.