More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
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14 October
A portrait of a man with traits of sociopathic disorder (and / or narcissism), which, because it is a slice of his life, might be a surprise to us – and to those on whom he preys - if they and we have never seen him before. That is the fiction, at any rate, but it does make you wonder whether A Brief Moment of Joy (Ein kleiner Augenblick des Glücks) (2013) may not be trying to educate us that people with such impulses exist : the close, however, shows that he is not wholly exploitative, when he had a free hand to do whatever he wanted…
That brief moment referred to the title may be right at the end, when he is no longer driven, and can just be, perhaps. The film presents Andreas, but is not a study of him – he is not real, because we cannot project his life beyond the confines of hiding keys in the leaves so that there is the shared experience of ‘finding’ them.
An experiment, maybe more than that, a mother who wants her son, in all seriousness, to praise her from a script of her devising (where she is the best mum in the world), a chance encounter in the forest, and then a repetition of the experiment, maybe more than that…
These words in no way tell one what Gasp (2012) is like, because it runs to 15 minutes and explores that time in a wholly unhurried way, as one might turn over pebbles on the beach, pick one up, let it drop. The contrast is with Brief Moment, which busies itself until, as I have commented, right at the end.
I regret to say that I felt that Remains Quiet (Die Ruhe Bleibt), with a similar running-time, tried too hard with a minuscule conceit, which was that of a crew making a film where the member of the crew delegated to block off one of the roads into the shoot will never get anywhere near (as we know that he and we will not).
What we can infer at the end is so banal and clumsily executed that it is surprising that anyone would trouble to make a film with such poverty in its concluding moments, whereas what went before, however observed, was just lacking in interest, and could not summon any up under any grander agenda of The Truth About How A Film Is Made.
Of this collection, the best came last, winning the audience award (A Golden Punt) for best short film. Inventive, engaging, spirited are just a few of the words that still come to mind : there is no point describing this film, the worst thing about which is the title (Rhino Full Throttle (Nashorn im Gallop) (2013)), and which just needs to be seen.
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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