Aufdruck

In crisp Black and white with a brief color coda we get Mary Krasnoperova and Kira Mathis, sitting dismissing the people and locations they encounter and downing their too small cups of coffee and dragging on their too small cigarettes. If you stumble on this one, you wonder where it's going and whether there will be a pay off. Well there is but it's kind of slight.

Film maker Jaschar L Marktanner has bubbled up from the ranks of non pro German film makers to create a string of his own films of which this is the first. You've got to admire the determination with which he promotes his work.

The young German short-filmmaker Jaschar L Marktanner shows some artistic merit with this wee social satire, about two friends sitting at a cafe table slandering the world around them. The film is arguably a parable for the modern web-agitators and their tendency for anonymous, and - according to Marktanner - essentially cowardly and futile protests. It's not at all an invalid point, and the film is quite evocative, largely thanks to fine mood-setting original music by Lukas Grepel. Mr. Marktanner has continued making short movies also in the years after Aufdruck, but we're still waiting for his feature debut.

With subtle yet crude humor, an atmospheric black and white cinematography and nothing much to say but plenty to reveal, "Label" is an artistic exercise that seems to take from Godard, Jarmusch and QT, without necessarily becoming a collage of their works to make a different point. A pleasant surprise, nicely photographed and with good acting.

Here's a film that allows us to see a lot more than just what presents: two young women at a restaurant talking about the SOB's of the world while drinking coffee, having a smoke, complaining about the waiter and stuff. BUT as the introduction gives us about the importance of pauses in a good conversation, this film actually makes us think about this exact part despite its reduced running time. Each pause in between dialogues are extremely important, and with that you can almost create a whole background about those two girls besides the whole difference between what they wear, how they act - visual contrast versus the inner aspects of both - and it's only in those pauses, just thinking about what they said to one another, or maybe something even more random than discussing aliens or anything else, is that you can actually see how apparently meaningful acts are important in our lives - and we usually don't pay much attention when we're talking to someone.

It's a lot like life. We all have, at some point, talks exactly like those, the kind of talk that only works with a group of acquaintances that know each other very well and everyone else from afar is shut outside trying to figure out the "eccentricity" of the group. Multi-task man behind camera is (who also as a cameo at the conclusion) Jaschar L Marktanner, in one of his earliest works, is a talent to be seen in more films to come. 7/10

No "cast of thousands" and no "three years in the making."

But what a funny little movie.

When a stranger sent me a link to this short, named "Label" in English, and asked my opinion, I was busy, editing some books for publication. But the request was polite and the film is short, so I took the time -- and now I've watched it three times!

Let me get out of the way my one complaint: I do not like the language - - and I don't mean the rather strange British translation, although, yes, it is flawed -- but the words coming out of the mouths of two very attractive young ladies.

But in this context, It Is Funny!

"Label," or "Aufdruck," is not so much funny for the, uh, well, "story," but for the perfect acting, the near-perfect directing and editing, and, of course, the context.

And, yes, the attractiveness of the two young women.

You might get a kick out of this and I do hope you will take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHxyMgDtPGw