Crumbs

Terrific magical film that works well on different levels. Surreal mystery. Post-apocalyptic science fiction. Compelling and weird character narrative. What has to be one of the strangest road/quest films ever. Some embedded humor as well.

Who needs a large budget when you have great cinematography, otherworldly sound effects, amazing locations, all brought together with inspired artistic vision.

I loved every strange crazy bit of it. Well worth seeking it out.

It's not every day I encounter a movie from Africa. When I have seen one, it often turns out to be quite strange. Crumbs is the weirdest one yet. Set in a post-apocalyptic Ethiopia, the story follows a disfigured man called Candy who tries to find a way to get aboard a huge spaceship which has continually hovered over the landscape for many years. There are signs that it seems to be reviving after being dormant for centuries. Candy is sent on a quest by a local witch to find a black Santa who will advise him of what he needs to do.

The synopsis is bizarre but the film is even stranger still. It is a little bit surreal and somewhat avant-garde, mainly on account of its obtuse nature. Nothing is spelt out particularly clearly but I do suspect that this is at least partially on account of people from this part of the world having very different inbuilt ways of expressing themselves compared to us in the West. But even with this in mind, I still think Crumbs is a fairly abstract film. There are interesting details to take in along the way such as the way that the precious items of this future are now our contemporary pop cultural things such as plastic toys and vinyl LPs, what we consider throwaway have now attained a high currency in this distant future. While celebrities from our time have attained godlike status, which in some respects they do nowadays but without the religion. So what does it all mean? No idea. But it was a bit different that much I can say for sure. It benefits from being from a part of the world with little cinematic output and having unusual locations to work with. It also has the manners to not let its experimental nature overstay its welcome with a brisk running time of 68 minutes. I can't say I necessarily enjoyed this one or got much out of it but I at least acknowledge its originality as something worthwhile.

Centuries after the apocalypse, the malformed Candy (Daniel Tadesse) loves beautiful young Birdy (Selam Tesfaye) and she loves him too. But Candy is troubled: he thinks the strange spaceship hanging in the sky is starting to operate again, and in the bowling alley where he and Birdy live, some of the ball-returning mechanisms have also started working, all by themselves. Candy hopes that the local witch can help him make sense of these signs, but she tells him that he must travel to the far-away city to find Santa Claus, who is the only one who can tell him what to do. So Candy starts off on his strange quest, while Birdy stays home and daydreams that her unborn child has been fathered by a more perfect specimen than Candy....

This is a very strange film, in which a photo of Michael Jordan on the b-ball court is a shrine, a Michael Jackson vinyl LP is venerated and cheap plastic toys are precious items to be bartered for enough money to perhaps earn passage on the spaceship to, well, wherever the ship might be going. I can't say that I understood it really at all, but it was an interesting film nonetheless. We in the West don't often see Ethiopian landscapes, which is more varied than I would have thought, and the characters are all engaging in their own, strange ways. It's a very short film at 68 minutes, and worth your time to check out, if only for its oddity.

Story base on an apocalyptic world creative story and characters use of the pop culture as symbols

Even if the movie had not starred a medically different person, I would still have loved it, as it was hands down one of the most brilliant and different films I have seen in forever, and it really made me want to visit Ethiopia.

As a disabled person, I strongly enjoyed not only seeing a medically different person in the lead role, but seeing them portrayed as a fully three dimensional character whose body is never commented upon. He is just a regular person, exceptional only in the unusually loving and devoted relationship he has with his fiancée.

Anyone who likes this movie may also enjoy it's spiritual sequel (not a literal continuation of the story, but a movie by the same director with the same actor with some of the same imagery) called "Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway". That said, it's worth mentioning that that movie does include a number of references to the main character's size, including some derogatory, and the credits and the end have heavy strobing which can cause seizures (including fatal seizures) in people with epilepsy and / or strobe sensitivity.

In short, this was a fantastic movie with excellent acting, excellent directing, an excellent storyline, and excellent representation.