Bomba Voadora

Great atmosphere, interesting story and pretty good execution by Chris Nolan who later will become one of the greatest directors of all time. Kind of an origin story ;)

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 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.

I never heard about someone, who after watching this short by Nolan didn't have smile in his face. This movie is just masterpiece among the short movies (I watched plenties) and very inspiring according to fact that on the scene is just a man with a shoe and he's trying to catch something.

In this movie Nolan shows us that, he can really grab our attention. And play with our emotions like he does in many other movies, like a true genius and all he needs is just 3 minutes.

Interesting fact is that Nolan was also behind the camera which is very rare according to the Following which was the last movie he shot. And I personally like his camera.

Yet I would also mention that the soundtrack is made by David Julyan who made soundtracks for another Nolan movies Following, Memento, Insomnia and The Prestige.

So I would recommend Doodlebug to everyone who is Nolan fan, who likes Kafkaesque movies and basically to everyone who likes movies, cinematography and dynamic short movies.

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.