How short is short? Isn’t a short film the sort of thing you can watch while running a bath? The fact that some of the films in the new Cinema 16 DVD cross the half-hour mark doesn’t seem quite right. Still, it probably says something about our familiarity with them that it’s even an issue.
Short films have a pretty rough reputation – pretentious students flouncing about the quadrangle clad in monochrome, inexplicable filler shown at 3am on Channel 4 – and it’ll take more than this DVD to remedy that.
It’s almost too easy to be cynical about short film. They seem to be made not to be seen, but as a calling card for film producers, and that’s much of what’s on offer here. In Wasp, a pre-Red Road Andrea Arnold offers her usual sweetness and light, opening with a brawl on an estate; it’s a sort of Oscar-winning version of Jeremy Kyle.
As if to compound the misery of poverty, despair and neglect, Danny Dyer pops up. This is followed by a pre-Vengeance Trilogy short from Park Chan-Wook, which sadly lacks any of the cinematic flair and spectacle he’s know for. It also drags – surely something a short film should never do.
There’s also work from Jane Campion and Alfonso Cuarón from a period when they were auteurs-in-training and, cynicism aside, seeing this early work can be fascinating. A definite highlight is Guillermo del Toro’s Doña Lupe (1985), a pulpy Mexican tale of a harridan who rents a room to two policemen who might not be the upstanding members of the community they profess to be. Miles away from the stylised horror of Hellboy or Pan’s Labyrinth, it shows what an impressive storyteller he could be even on a zero budget.
The DVD is versatile too, with animation from Belleville Rendezvous’ Sylvain Chomet, a groundbreaking piece of African cinema from 1963 and Isabella Rossellini discussing her father Roberto’s life (the father being played by director Guy Maddin’s distended belly). Indeed, those looking for theme or cohesion are out of luck.
Despite it being a slightly ragtag affair, much of it easily forgotten, it’s still worth a look. Best of the lot is Soft, directed by Simon Ellis. A tense little piece, told in real-time, of a father and son who both encounter suburban menace. An Englishman’s home may be his castle but when there’s camera-phone wielding youths about, things can get a little nasty. Best of all, at 14 minutes, it doesn’t out-stay its welcome.
Cinema 16: World Short Films is out now.
