El cisne

This is another of the four part short collection of stories, presented on netflix, originally by roald dahl. This one is only eighteen minutes. About two no-goods who decide to torture a boy. It gets pretty dark, but it's mostly in words spoken by the narrator. Not a lot of blood and guts. Also starring ralph fiennes as dahl. With rupert friend. Lots of fast talking, which accompanies the amazing, short, advenure. Fun, clever sets. Some sadness, but according to the card at the end, it's partly based on an actual local news account. A bit darker than the others. Directed by wes anderson. And all over in eighteen minutes!

I didn't realize that this was coming out so soon after Henry Sugar.

Shorts are a great way for the casual observer to get acclimated to Wes Anderson without overwhelming the viewer. Production design and set decoration are typically cool and quirky. Rupert Friend gives a fun performance.

I wish The French Dispatch would have been released the same way that these Roald Dahl shorts are coming out. It's much more manageable. They can be collected into one bigger film but they stand alone very nicely. Wes Anderson is clearly a big fan of Dahl and takes great care to present the stories in a way that honors both story and author.

A young boy relentlessly bullied by two older boys finally finds the strength to escape his tormentors. The pair of cruel older boys, who enjoy shooting songbirds in the hedgerow and ultimately kill the titular bird while it's nurturing its young are so repulsive that they drift into caricature (as perhaps was the intent, as they are figments of the narrator's memories). Like Anderson's other recent Dahl interpretations, 'The Swan' is a stagy, borderline surreal, meta-production that puts style far ahead of content. The cast is great, as is the intricate imagery, so I enjoyed the short despite the disagreeable and mean-spirited cruelty that permeates the story.

Wes Anderson has four new short-films on Netflix. I think they're all based on Roald Dahl stories. Last night I watched the one called "The Swan," and I really had no idea what I was in for. I guess I had expected something comical, with melancholy undercurrents, like most of Anderson's work. Instead, the story is one of the most diabolical horror stories I've ever heard, diabolical because it is so realistic, so believable - describing the ordinary way in which young boys can do terrible things to each other. And yet, because it is expressed through Anderson's cute, stagey, pastel-colored style, there is a distancing effect which somehow makes the piece hit harder than a more realistic style might have. It has the power of a poem, or a song. The magical-realist ending concludes the piece on a mysterious, ambiguous note which can be read in different ways. My god, it's good. So sad, so powerful.

The Swan is heartbreaking but ultimately powerful stuff, a story of never backing down or letting monstrous people win. It's uneasy viewing and definitely the darkest of the Wes Anderson Roald Dahl shorts in the most rewarding way possible.

Rupert Friend essentially carries this, narrating everything with almost no support until Fiennes' closing words that adds real power to it. Until then Friend is phenomenal, narrating at a fast speed with a real pain to his voice as he describes what is clearly a very painful memory.

Wes Anderson's direction works so well here, the whimsical world created contrasts so effectively against the dark nature and it's generally just so stunning. This fully artificial world that acts like a play is endlessly watchable and each short has been so unique.