Do Esgoto

From the Drain (1967)

** (out of 4)

David Cronenberg's second short film is set in the future where two men discuss a variety of things. The two were a part of some sort of war and they discuss their lives while sitting in a tub surrounded by drains.

For the most part I thought this was an extremely well-made short but at the same time I found the dialogue to be quite boring and this here made the entire film seem slow and way too long even at just twelve minutes. On a technical level the film is impressive as Cronenberg does a nice job with the direction and we've also got some good editing and a nice score. The performances are what you'd expect from a film like this but it's just the dialogue doesn't work and it really brings the film down.

'Transfer' was mediocre at best, but 'From the Drain' is even less impressive. On a technical level, it is definitely superior in various respects, although it still has an amateurish quality to it, which sometimes works to a film's advantage, but in this case it doesn't really do much to help or hurt the film. The main technical issue I have is the score, which could work if it wasn't playing throughout the literal entirety of this 12 minute short. It's some relaxing acoustic soundtrack that's alright for a minute and could work as an ironic accompaniment for this darkly comic short in small, spread out chunks, but instead it's just extended throughout the full 12 minutes of the film. It gets very annoying, especially since I actually made myself sit through this short twice in a row b/c on my first viewing, the copy I watched was so bad I couldn't really see much of what was going on. I suddenly saw there was another copy readily available to me that actually looked...acceptable, so I made myself sit through the same film all over again, which I had already decided was a tedious short with only a select few real merits (the editing is decent, particularly for a film of this obvious a small budget, and I like some of the camerawork, the color copy is well restored, the special effects are campy and kinda bad but they're charming and fit the tone of the short, which isn't particularly serious nor should it really be, etc.), and it's shocking that this was made by the same man who, years later, would craft such legitimate masterpieces as 'Videodrome', 'The Fly', 'Naked Lunch', and so on.

David Cronenberg is one of those highly appreciate than love directors, but he is fascinating with a distinctive directing style unlike any other. One that actually goes beyond pioneering the body horror genre that he was known for. A vast majority of his work falls in the good, very good, great and masterpiece categories, with about five or six exceptions that still manage to not be unwatchable and still be semi-interesting.

The second of his very early short films, 'From the Drain', for me is regrettably one of the exceptions. Didn't hate 'From the Drain' by all means and it is a long way from unwatchable (it takes a lot for me to cite anything as unwatchable these days), it did have components done better than they were in his previous short film 'Transfer', which also had a couple of things done better there. Both fitting in the interesting semi-failure category.

'From the Drain' looks decent, one does not expect that from early Cronenberg and small budget when a few of his films made not long after looked worse than this. There is a sense of eeriness and the photography and editing have an equal amount of atmosphere and don't look amateurish. On its own, the music score is haunting and relaxing.

One can see too a few of his distinctive qualities/themes that would be seen in a vast majority of his films, though they were explored much better later with there not being enough time to do much with them. Cronenberg's direction here is more confident and not as inexperienced and the actors were okay.

A lot of things stop 'From the Drain' from making more of an impression. A big problem is the pace, which was throughout very sluggish and really lacking in lustre. Less talk would have helped it because it did feel too much on that front, and that it was not a component done very well (found it pretty rambling and awkward) hurts it further. The story perplexes rather than intrigues, and even for a short length there was very little of it. Like his lesser efforts, 'From the Drain' felt very clinical and emotionally distant, one of not much of his work to not make me feel anything.

Did say that the music worked well on its own and was a nice score on its own, do feel though that it could have been used less and been more subtle. The sound is marginally better than in 'Transfer', but is still poorly recorded.

In summary, somewhat interesting though only if trying to see all of Cronenberg's work (that was my reason at least). Don't really have much desire to see it again though am not going to get people to stay away from it. 4/10

David Cronenberg's second film is a bit more indicative of his future cinematic vision than Transfer, in that this one has an ominous sci-fi/horror premise. It features two men, who are veterans from some future war, as they sit in a bath - but what's down the drain? While this one has more interesting ideas in it than Transfer and is a first small step in the direction Cronenberg would become renowned for, it is still essentially two fellas in a bathtub and the acting is horrible.