My regular readers know that I watch a lot of movies. Most come by recommendation, but I often dive into hard to get unknown films. I do this over and over on the hope that sometime I'll stumble over something like this little gem.
Friends, this is really great. This is "Reservoir Dogs" (which was a "Dog Day Afternoon" done right) done right, even down to the credits. You should let your doubts out about "Dogs," and the fact that other than sheer audacity and speed it had a lot of empty space that the filmmaker couldn't even see. This empty space makes it a series of talking movie posters, not a real film.
This has what that is missing.
Whatever Ms Coal is doing now is a waste of talent unless she is making a long form film. This one is short but it has all the shape of long form. It uses parallel, compressed fragmentary narrative to create several layers, inhabit most of them, and let us see enough to peel off enough pieces to construct a world. Each narrative thread has motive, which is the way it should be instead of characters having motivation (and then driving the situation).
You can't pull this off unless you establish a rhythm that's just a bit faster than what we know, fast enough to make us work so that we actually SEE. But it cannot be chaotic. This woman knows or at least intuits how to do this.
I urge you to seek it out and in some way encourage the world to find a future path between her and us.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
