Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to go see a stunning collection of short films from the last Sundance festival. I enjoyed every one of the films, though I can’t definitively say that I understood some of them.
“5 Films About Technology” is a collection of comedic scenarios focused on modern peoples’ occasionally ridiculous relationships with technology and an interconnected world. For instance, the ritual taking of food photos in a restaurant.
“Ten Meter Tower” consists of footage of people challenged to jump off of a 10m high dive. The film is an exercise in constant suspense — person after person goes back and forth between the edge and the ladder, talking themselves into and out of jumping. It demonstrates how perhaps irrational fears are a common human experience, and the how bravery does not always come from the people one might expect it from.
“Lucia, Before and After” features a young woman trying to get an abortion, and shows how she spends the Texas-mandated 24 hour waiting period after her sonogram. She tries to beg for a room and food at a hotel, but is turned away. She dines sand dashes, and sleeps in her car. She has no money and no support. The film highlights how abortion really is the only option for many women.
“Pussy” is a surreal, animated depiction of a woman exploring her own sexual pleasure. She’s having an unsuccessful evening attempting to masturbate, when her vagina literally peels itself off of her body, grows legs, and walks around like a little animal. It walks around rubbing itself on all kinds of things to represent her exploring different methods of pleasure and it even scares away a voyeur. A slightly unnerving, but hilarious and endearing film.
“And the Whole Sky Fit in the Dead Cow’s Eye” completely confused me. A Mexican man’s cattle die mysteriously due to what is later determined to be a lightning strike. His mother, is visited by a dead man who tells her that he has come to take her son, so she begs to be allowed to die instead. Her son tries to kill himself, but the dead man leads the mother into the woods. Presumably she has traded her life for his successfully, but I have no clue what it means or what it says about society.
“Night Shift” was one of my favorite films of the collection. It’s a touching snapshot of a night in the life of a black man who works a degrading and unsatisfying job as a bathroom attendant in a club, while also dealing with a crumbling marriage. He suffers ridiculous demands and cruel treatment at the hands of his largely white patrons in return for tips. One man bribes the main character to let him have sex with a girl in one of the stalls. Another urinates on the ground, and then throws the tip in the puddle while hurling verbal abuse. Eventually, the man gathers the courage to pull in his wife (who also works in the club) and convince her to dance with him for just one song. They share a fun and intimate dance, and when she leaves, she says that she “might” have dinner with him sometime.
The setting is particularly interesting in how it contrasts humiliation and joy, the worst and best of humanity, all in one room. Additionally, the bathroom is empty and claustrophobic, but the music of the bustling club can constantly be heard, which seems to highlight the underlying feeling of being isolated at the edge of the excitement of life. I think the film’s depictions of uncertainty and lack of fulfillment are universal, but the racial themes are also clear. I particularly loved how the film made no effort to adhere to a traditional story arc. As soon as it opened to a man examining divorce papers, I thought for sure it was going to be the story of how he came to terms with the divorce or how he won his wife back for good. Neither happened. The film had no conclusion, no closure. Instead, he simply finishes work and drives home. That’s it. That’s the night, so that’s the film.
The film “Come Swim”, was a surreal depiction of…well, something. A man wakes up in a dilapidated house, and goes about an eerie and lonely workday in a rundown world. Meanwhile, he is constantly haunted by a voice asking him to “Come swim with me”, to which he responds, “But I don’t want to”. He compulsively seeks out water and is constantly thirsty. He feverishly drinks and pours water over himself, but it’s never enough. At the end of the day he begins driving to the ocean, and in each shot his body begins to decay. He passes out before reaching the waves, and children appear to drag him into the water.
To me this seemed to clearly be a metaphor for addiction. A voice in his head tempts him constantly, though he doesn’t want to obey. The more he drinks, the more thirsty he becomes. His body begins to fall apart. He becomes driven by compulsion and seems to die trying to reach a source of ultimate satiation. (Also, the ocean is saltwater — it would never actually satisfy thirst.) Other ghostly voices that are heard throughout the film and say things like, “It couldn’t happen to me”.
The second half of the film seems to support this idea. This time, he wakes up in a normal bedroom and goes to work at an average looking office. At many of the points where he drank water the first time around, he smokes a cigarette the second. I actually liked the film better before seeing the second half, when the water could represent any kind of addiction, and the symbolism was less clear. I even thought the film was somewhat heavy handed at times.
After a brief survey of synopses and reviews, however, apparently nobody agrees with me. The director herself says the film is about “heartbreak”. I suppose, just like poetry, everyone can get something different out of a film. Perhaps the intent of the creators of a film doesn’t matter as much as the interpretation of the viewer.