Dark Twisted Fantasies (2018 shorts program)

“Dark Twisted Fantasies” (shorts program)

Saturday, June 23, 9:00 p.m. Roxie 👎🏼

1. David, dir. James Sweeney, 2018 Germany/USA, 8 minutes 😑 WORLD PREMIERE
2. Lagi senang jaga sekandang lembu (It’s Easier to Raise Cattle), dir. Amanda Nell Eu, 2017 Malaysia, 17 minutes, in Malaysian with English subtitles 🙄👎 BAY AREA PREMIERE
3. Smågodis, katter och lite våld (Swedish Candy, Some Violence and a Bit of Cat), dir. Ester Martin Bergsmark, 2018 Sweden, 45 minutes, in Swedish with English subtitles 💩🤮 NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
4. Les Îles (Islands), dir. Yann Gonzalez, 2017 France, 24 minutes, in French with English subtitles 😑💤 BAY AREA PREMIERE

Four short films, the best of which I give a “meh.”

David, dir. James Sweeney, 2018 Germany/USA, 8 minutes 😑 WORLD PREMIERE

David: our hero(?) having
sexytime with a mannequin

A young man has a series of recurring thoughts, flash­backs, and maybe flash-forwards, plus probably some al­ter­nate uni­vers­es, all centering on the name David. Is David the ex he just broke up with, his dog, his fraternal twin whom he killed and ate in the womb, or some other random figure from his past? Or maybe the mannequin he makes out with? I found it confusing and unsatisfying, jumping from one stream of thought to another with little or no discernible rhyme or reason. It wasn’t awful or offensive, it just didn’t cohere. No recom­­men­­da­tion. • IMDb •

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Lagi senang jaga sekandang lembu (It’s Easier to Raise Cattle), dir. Amanda Nell Eu, 2017 Malaysia, 17 minutes, in Malaysian with English subtitles 🙄👎
BAY AREA PREMIERE

Lagi senang jaga sekandang lembu
(It’s Easier to Raise Cattle)

Ramah, a shy teenaged girl, is mysteriously drawn to “girl with long hair” (the character’s name as it appears in the end credits), who is apparently the village “bad girl.” We see a series of short snippets of scenes involving Ramah watching GWLH or interacting with her. The snippets make very little sense taken individually, and the whole is less than the sum of its parts. I got the feeling that some of the scenes might resonate with some aspect of Malaysian culture, but there was nothing to draw in an outside observer, nor even to give a clue as to what on earth was going on or what it could possibly have to do with raising cattle, since no livestock of any kind appear in the entire film, unless you count a single dead frog. Not recommended. • IMDb •

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Smågodis, katter och lite våld (Swedish Candy, Some Violence and a Bit of Cat), dir. Ester Martin Bergsmark, 2018 Sweden, 45 minutes, in Swedish with English subtitles 💩🤮
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

Smågodis, katter och lite våld
(Swedish Candy, Some
Violence and a Bit of Cat)

Director Ester Martin Bergsmark’s first feature, Nånting måste gå sönder (Something Must Break) (IMDb), won the Frame­line 38 Best First Feature award. I didn’t see that one, so I can’t comment. This year, Bergsmark is back with a short film about two women, two girls, and a couple of dead house cats, interspersed with a corporate promo video extolling in rapturous terms the joys of gelatin while explaining how it is made. This film contains violent and otherwise disturbing imagery, with absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever. AVOID THIS FILM. Not recommended for any audience. • IMDb •

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Les Îles (Islands), dir. Yann Gonzalez, 2017 France, 24 minutes, in French with English subtitles 😑💤 BAY AREA PREMIERE

Les Îles (Islands)

We begin with a stage play. A man and a woman, both naked, are kissing tenderly. Enter a man with a monster’s face. The three of them have sex. Afterwards, various members of the audience get randy, leading others around them (including random strangers in a park) to get randy, or to tape record them and then go home for a little solo action.

For a film with a disclaimer that it contains explicit sexual scenes, it was surprisingly boring, primarily because the dreamlike sequence of images had no coherence. There was no story line, no character development, no insight into what was going on inside these people’s inner lives, and nothing to draw in the viewer, just bizarre and sometimes faintly erotic images seemingly at random. Not recommended. • IMDb •