Copy Shop

Stylistically akin to the likes of Guy Maddin, David Lynch, and Bill Morrison being shoved into a blender, 'Copy Shop' is a joy to watch. The visual flourishes are not only charming and fun, but also really help add to the overall surreal, creepy, yet funny atmosphere the short is going for. On a technical level, pretty much everything here is great. I've already mentioned the glorious visuals, and it is essential I also praise the wonderful background score! It helps add to the bizarre dreariness of the entire depicted situation, it heightens the madness of the Kafkaesque chaos unravelling before us, and it is just fantastic music in its own right. Any fan of weirder, more avant garde type filmmaking should seek this one out soon, it's readily available on the internet and in great quality.

According to the Short Of The Week website the process of filming COPY SHOP was done like this: Shot on digital camcorder , was transferred on to computer and was edited on computer . So what you ask ? Well after that - and here's the hard bit - each and every frame was photocopied and then each and every frame was filmed on 35 mm camera . It leads to a meta-fictional context for the film which narrative wise involves photo copying going haywire and I bet director Virgil Widrich must have gone a bit haywire himself while doing the process . It sounds a nightmare of absolute frustration to do

As admirable as the work that went in to it I am someone who likes a self contained narrative to a story and for something to really jump out and grab me by the throat . Alas COPY SHOP is a good idea filmed in a unique way but is rather one note . A man photocopies himself and this leads to ... well you can what the natural succession of this is going turned up to the power of eleven . No doubt this influenced a film directed by the son of a very famous rock star with Kevin Spacey playing the voice of a computer . You know the movie I mean , a movie incidentally I wasn't mad keen on and to blunt I wasn't mad keen on this one either

A young man who works in a photocopying shop photocopies his hand with amusement one day. However the photocopy then kicks out copies of him earlier in the day etc. He turns the machine off and locks the copies away. However he finds copies of himself repeating themselves all over his town as things begin to get out of hand.

I had very high hopes for this before I watched it because I had heard good things about it and I was mainly satisfied afterwards despite a few problems. The story could be taken as an allegory of cloning or several other things. I ignored the subtexts and focused on the fact that it was simply a clever idea at heart. Technically the film is brilliantly imaginative and worth watching. The film was shot digitally. These digital images were then all photocopied and then animated. In terms of the plot this adds eight to the copying subject but it is also an very different way to make a film.

The slight downside is that the grainy images and rough style can be a little hard on the eyes at first, but I soon forgot this as I watched it. The plot is very clever but it is just one idea. After several minutes the novelty and the freshness wears off and it starts to outstay it's welcome – I wanted it to go somewhere. The ending is good and it saves the film just as it was starting to run out of steam.

Overall I enjoyed it and there's no doubting the imagination and technical ability that went into making this. In a world where Being John Malkovich is praised then this too should be appreciated as it has similar shots if not ideas. Well worth a look – plus it's easily the best (the only!) piece of Austrian cinema I've ever seen!

Terrible quality and it is a torture to watch it. Made in 2001? Maybe it is a mistake and was made in 1901.

Interesting films are copies of life (or something related to life) that enclose and acknowledge themselves.

I call this "folding," where the film does something and them does something with itself, usually the same "something." That's the idea in many, many films. It is a hot topic in some films schools and many script labs.

And that's what this veteran of film intellectual circles addresses (even though he is from a historically daft area cinematic ally).

Nominally, this is about a man who copies his own reality and encounters the copies. What makes it interesting viewing is how the "copying" is woven into the actual making of the film: what we see was "filmed," then each frame made into a photocopy (with many artifacts of paper) and then filmed. So we get two layers of paper and two layers of film interwoven. Only the paper artifacts are acknowledged.

Very clever. It is only an essay compared to a real folded film like "Moulin Rouge," but a fun film school exercise in real folding.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.