The Assignation

For such a concise film, with the barest sketch of a plot and coming in at just 8 minutes, most of which is a gondola ride in Venice, the feeling this produced in me was lasting. Ostensibly it's quite simple: a man(?) dressed for carnival with black cape and white mask carries a single red rose to an (unmasked, uncostumed) woman who seems to expect him.

Taking somewhat literally, is the giving of oneself in a relationship inherently unequal, with one person always more guarded/cloaked, and the other annihilating themself at least a little bit more to be involved? Or has timeless Death traveled slowly but surely through the canals of a timeless and beautiful city to make the most ancient of assignations, the one we all ultimately will face? Is this meeting a deflowering that may lead to birth, or the dissolving of oneself into the eternal? Or does it relate to Harrington's sexuality, with petals falling and the costume signifying a kind of death when involved with women?

As with his other films it's ambiguous and subject to interpretation, but there's no debating that final shot - it's simply fantastic.