The Venice Film Festival posted 70-ish short films online to commemorate their 70th anniversary. I watched them gradually over the past year. These are the ones I did not care for. Favorites are here and the rest here.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Visual: driving straight road in the rain through wipers
Audio: ocean with seagulls
Jean-Marie Straub
Single silent shot of pages relaying some quotes about death in a couple of French films.
LluÃs Galter
Fuzzy slow-mo long shots of people near water.
Karim Aïnouz
Search party? Man in orange vest with flashlight helmet vanishes into mist.
Bernardo Bertolucci – Red Shoes
Electric Wheelchair drives over rough street.
Amos Gitai
Still photos of a man on beach crossfade while Jeanne Moreau speaks of a poem (or perhaps not literally a poem).
Lav Diaz
Handheld shot through an upper-floor window as an elderly person slowly walks down the street, then a poetic voiceover kicks in.
Todd Solondz
Ridiculous course catalog of a Chinese film history program 1000 years in the future, using an early-80’s-looking screen with early-90’s-sounding text-to-speech.
Marlen Khutsiev – In Perpetuum Infinituum
Chekhov and Tolstoy are having a motion-picture portrait taken. Then: champagne, war footage, a brass band and a giant Viva Cinema intertitle.
Tobis Lindholm – The Hit
Two camoflaged jeeps are driving. Bomb!
Claire Denis
Overheard conversation gives way to a noisy Tindersticks song. Is it that she can’t be bothered to find new music, or does she truly love Tindersticks that much? Camera seems to be inside a bag or under a scarf – I’m not convinced this short was even made on purpose.
Rama Burshtein
Man is told to open his mouth. Finally he does. A dance song plays. Hunh?
Semih Kaplanoglu – Devran
Static shot of – what’s that, a tree? – with audio of thunderstorm and constant firefly flicker.
Franco Piavoli
Fire and yelling, then children and sunsets.
Amiel Courtin-Wilson
Rough-looking man plays a prolonged Amazing Grace on harmonica in close-up.
Tusi Tamasese
Stills of some leaves, then of two people doing… I don’t know what, since it’s over already.
Michele Placido – Yorick’s Speech
Old guy says the youth of today are the future of filmmaking while a banal pop song plays.
Julio Bressane
Silent 16mm clips, then clips from 1960’s period epics, something like that.