Next Floor

I just saw this great short at the Stockholm Film Festival. Kudos to the director and team for creating a spectacular little film.

I was so impressed with the tone and ambiance. It had a very special quality. It reminded me of the works of Jeunet, Greenaway and such. But that's OK - it was a very personal short film.

The production was equally great. The sets, costumes, styling etc was remarkable.

And the food was brilliant.

The cinematography was superb.

The style of comedy was excellent.

Bravo to you all!

I look forward to your next work.

A group of well-dressed wealthy people consume and consume in this absurd and brilliant short by director Denis Villeneuve. Their gluttony knows no end and despite the fact that the sheer weight of their banquet is enough to break through the floor and land them on the next lowest floor they cannot stop consuming, consuming, consuming.

A brilliant parable on greed and also on our natural resources (this really feels like a poignant statement on climate change, even though we know it will literally kill us it seems like humans can't get it together to stop hurting the planet), this is an incredibly well made short that shows what a genius Villeneuve is and hints at the masterworks in his future.

Make your conclusions about whatever the film is trying to say, though it seems impossible to imagine the filmmakers didn't have in mind some kind of depiction of the sin of "gluttony" in Hell. Watch instead for the great sound design, where floors creak, mouths crunch, smack, and gobble rich meals, and cutlery clanks and clacks like a knight's armor.

The film is creepy but also tongue in cheek, with a hilariously hyperbolic string-instrument riff that plays each time the eaters fall from one floor to the next (I've heard it before and so have you... at first I thought it was from a YouTube meme but I can't find the name).

Still, by short's end, this one will have revolted, shocked, and thoroughly freaked you out in a lingering, psychological sort of way. Some great VFX work in this one too. It's free on Vimeo, only 10 minutes long. Go watch it now!

Next Floor (2008)

*** (out of 4)

Strange but effective short about some grotesque people sitting around a table eating some rather grotesque things while some servants look on. As soon as the people eat a certain amount they, with the table, go falling to the next floor where they're fed even more until they fall through the floor yet again. That's pretty much everything that happens for 11-minutes and you'd think that it might get boring after a while but it actually never does. Instead this is an extremely well-made and rather intelligent film that contains some superb cinematography. The images on the screen are rather ugly as I'm sure most vegetarians will pass out before the movie is over with. What makes the images so effective is the great cinematography but also the terrific editing, which puts you right in the middle of the table and you'll really feel as if you're there looking at and smelling all this food. Director Villeneuve has created a rather unique little gem that is well worth watching as it's both funny and disturbing.

It reminds Fellini, Pasolini, Franz Kafka and, especially Bunuel. It seems be a portrait of gluttony ; in essence bitter critic against consumerism. Well crafted, floor by floor, it is a real gem first for a sort of Baroc exuberance of excess, second for the precise photography of decadence, not the last for the precise message of end of an age and , finally, because you feel the flavour of death in the second half.Eleven people front to grotesque dishes . Eating. And eating. And eating. And the circle of servants , musicians and their eyes , steps , run, reaction in the last scene. Just a gem. So, so familiar...