This short Swedish film starts off both confusingly and also is very dull through the first half. I honestly felt compelled to just speed ahead to the next short on the DVD but stuck it out--and I am very glad I did, as it improved tremendously towards the finish.
The film starts with a scene reminiscent of the German "Final Solution", as you see hoards of naked people herded into a truck and the exhaust was piped back into the passenger cabin. During this, the leading character of this film does nothing and everyone is emotionless. Then in the following very brief separate vignettes, this man introduces himself, then his brother, his job, his apartment, etc. All this is incredibly dull. The sets are all gray, the characters almost zombie-like and this man's narration is listless. Only later when you see that this man is in fact going insane does any of this make sense.
Complex, Bergman-like and slow. This is a film many will find tedious but try seeing it all and then decide. It's far deeper and more interesting if you wait it out and see the entire tale unfold.
By the way, this film is part of the CINEMA 16: European Shorts DVD. On this DVD are 16 shorts. Most aren't great, though because it contains THE MAN WITHOUT A HEAD, COPY SHOP, RABBIT and WASP, it's an amazing DVD for lovers of short films and well worth buying.
The film starts with a scene reminiscent of the German "Final Solution", as you see hoards of naked people herded into a truck and the exhaust was piped back into the passenger cabin. During this, the leading character of this film does nothing and everyone is emotionless. Then in the following very brief separate vignettes, this man introduces himself, then his brother, his job, his apartment, etc. All this is incredibly dull. The sets are all gray, the characters almost zombie-like and this man's narration is listless. Only later when you see that this man is in fact going insane does any of this make sense.
Complex, Bergman-like and slow. This is a film many will find tedious but try seeing it all and then decide. It's far deeper and more interesting if you wait it out and see the entire tale unfold.
By the way, this film is part of the CINEMA 16: European Shorts DVD. On this DVD are 16 shorts. Most aren't great, though because it contains THE MAN WITHOUT A HEAD, COPY SHOP, RABBIT and WASP, it's an amazing DVD for lovers of short films and well worth buying.