END

From Michael Sandford comes an experimental short, which in itself is no surprise; in just two years he has become the most prolific director in the community by a wide margin, singlehandedly bringing movie output up to the level it was at back in 2001 or 2002, when new films came out on a weekly basis. What is surprising is that END is no "Michael in Mexico -1". Apart from a few telltale signs, you'd be hard-pressed to peg this as a Sandford film if you didn't know ahead of time. Certainly it's not the usual territory he covers. Instead of another entertaining action romp with a punchline, existing mostly to try out new techniques, END is experimental from the thematic to the mundane, from top to bottom.

I'd like to say I've never seen anything quite like it, though in fact I've seen a lot of things that are like it -- this sort of wistful, dialogue-free, existential exploration has been well-represented in the 3dmm community. JP's Doom series explored these same themes and visual motifs, and you can find much of the same atmosphere in Dead Heart in a Dead World or even The Black Woods, in its own scatterbrained way. Certainly Danny Mears is making a career out of this kind of thing. But END outperforms them all, never stretching beyond its basic aims, never bothering us with hidden "meaning" or convoluted messages, and staying just this side of 2 minutes rather than dragging it out. It's wistful and exploratory in a way that many people have attempted, and Sandford achieves without seeming to try very hard. His goals for it seem so unpretentious that it's possible he doesn't fully understand what he's done here.

Released in AVI and youtube format rather than 3dmm (something I've been iffy about but don't have as much of an issue with in this case), END uses the shading overlay trick that's become so popular in the past year. This effect can be done for its own sake simply because it looks cool, but this is one of the cases where it really does bring something else to the film. It darkens the palette considerably, bringing depth to an environment where flat, uniform textures would have muted the atmosphere Sandford achieves, and custom-built shadows wouldn't have quite done it. The premise is simple, but conveyed in such a visually-focused way that I hesitate to describe it, because this is a case where the movie has done a better job than the most detailed synopsis ever could. Nevertheless: A man sits in his cubicle at a busy office complex, obviously bored and stuck in a daily routine that has been going on for many years. The walls and floor are variations on wood and dirt textures, which coupled with the shading detail give the environment a distinctly subterranean look without making it blatant; had Sandford gone with the usual antiseptic white of most 3DMM cubicle environments, the movie would not have been nearly as visually interesting. The man watches people walking by, and notices something strange happen.

Without really stating it outright, END gives us a nice look into this man's psyche. The camera work doesn't make this early moment into a shock, we don't quickly zoom into his face as the music stops. He reacts in a way that suggests this isn't a hallucination, and yet it doesn't alarm him. He turns back to what he was doing, half-slumped over, staring at a computer monitor. Eventually he stands, reality dilates around him, and he escapes from his world.

This is a virtuoso sequence for Sandford, an incredible series of shots punctuated perfectly by the music and visual effects he's managed. These things have never been tried before, in v3dmm or earlier in 3DMM's life cycle via some kind of visual equivalent. The world stretches, undulates, dilates, people and objects warping and moving past and around him. Each shot is perfectly placed in the succession, revealing new possibilities about what might be happening. And the movie doesn't give us a concrete explanation, doesn't seem to have any goals for a 1:1 representation or metaphor, and doesn't appear to think one is necessary. It gives us what it gives us on its own terms, and the result is something visceral and very interesting that doesn't overstay its welcome or insist on its own "meaning." I thought it could have ended even sooner than it did, after the cut to black after he falls out of his chair, but maybe then the final closeup on the monitor with the credits wouldn't have worked as well.

The music deserves special mention, as it is one of the keys to why the atmosphere works so well. I don't know who Devendra Banhart is, but I'll be sure to check him/her out as soon as possible. The opening section of the movie is suitably lulling and melancholy, reflecting the dreamlike quality of the office activity, and the more active part is downright sublime, again perfectly reinforcing the visual extravaganza of the last 20 seconds.

END is experimental in the best possible way, genuinely exploring and attempting never-before-used techniques not just for their own sake, but in the service of an idea, and the result is an incredible little film. It almost beats Liquid Sunshine as my favorite short of all time. It's amazing what the right idea with the right techniques combined in the right way can do, regardless of the time spent doing the combining.

Critical Score: 96/100.
Personal Score: 100/100.

[Michael Sandford]

awwww
thanks so much! * warm feeling inside *

[Gorosaurus]

While I do agree with most of your points to a, well, point, this score doesn't really seem to match up with the writeup. Yes the music and palette deserve special mention, but your fixation on the movie seems to dwell more on its surprise than its substance.

It is a finely crafted film, no doubts there, but nearly better than Liquid Sunshine? Better than Memories of a Soldier? Better than Bulletin Board Vigilante? I would be interested in the comparisons.

I didn't apparently catch the same driving thread that held the scenes together. It was a beautiful mish-mash, but it would take more analyzing to connect the dots.

[Pizza The Hut]

Nah, I agree with the score. If you can actually get that flowing sense of beauty out of a 3dmm movie, that ... abstract feeling that I can't really describe, it deserves that high. But that's just me.

[Gorosaurus]

This is clearly a pretty solid A- to A movie, but there just wasn't enough of a driving point or clear motive for making it to queue higher. It's not the most beautiful film I've seen and it's not the deepest, nor is it the greatest mix of the two. It is a wonderful well-above-average film that hit out of nowhere

[Aaron Haynes]

It's a point above what I gave Liquid Sunshine originally (95) and 4 points below the DVD edition of that film, which extended the pauses and gave us more time at crucial moments to dwell what was happening (100).

As for a consistent driving thread, I expressed it in the review about as well I'm probably going to be able to. Even so, consider your Liquid Sunshine review where you described film as a visual medium rather than necessarily having to use linear storytelling (though I would argue that LS does storytelling even stronger than many shorts that are more linear). END is not deep in a way that you can pick themes out of it and point out how it's saying something about depression here, or boredom there, but it does something with an abstract idea that has its own closed loop of logic. It exists on its own terms and doesn't attempt to reach beyond them, so I can't fault it for not explaining what occurs in practical terms. It has specific visual ideas and uses them to fulfill specific mood ideas, and they're almost never incongruous. I don't feel there are any further dots to connect.

I'm with Pizza on the "flowing sense of beauty" idea, as that's exactly the level that this resonated on. It made visual and thematic sense to me, doesn't aim to have a logical, real-life, 1:1 substitution for what happens in it, and so I was never concerned with that.

[Aaron Haynes]

Actually, now that I look back, 96 is the same score I gave Stranger 4, which is also almost purely stylistic rather than plot-driven. Like 60% of that movie is a lot of "atmospheric nothing happening" that is entertaining and dreamlike and nonsensical. So it's oddly appropriate, I think.

[Gorosaurus]

Ooo, now I want to watch Stranger 4 again


I will have to try to be less analytical about END

[Aaron Haynes]

I dunno about all that, it's just how I saw it. Respond to it in whatever way feels appropriate for you.

[Dominator Dan]

he scored higher than revolutions omg

[Aaron Haynes]

pfft get out of the way n00b.

I think calling this "Horror" is misclassifying it, though I'm not sure what it would be out of the selections we have available. Maybe "Arthouse" or something, but I wouldn't want to encourage people to start making films under that heading.

[Pizza The Hut]

There should just be an OTHER or something.

Well, "fantasy" could be taken several ways. Maybe films like this, the abstract stuff, should be fantasy?

[Tuna Hematoma]

anything where I don't know what to call it... I just call it a drama.