Nashville Film Festival: Dispatch 3
One of the wackiest yet heartfelt short films you’ll see this year, Greg Fox’s Monkey-Love, Please Hold delves deep into Millennial loneliness via an unconventional, mind-bending story. The tale of heartbroken Ben (a goofily charming Dan Mousseau) making sense of his feelings for his nightly anonymous amateur sex cam partner — she keeps her head out of frame; he covers his with an ape mask — takes multiple amusing twists and turns after a mysterious delivery man (Hayden Finkelshtain) drops off a package. Fox (also the film’s editor) and cinematographer Brian T.C. Smith capture it all with an assured hand, producing crisp imagery that moves along at an entertaining pace, leading to a climax that’s wild but also well-earned. Grade: B-plus —Edwin Arnaudin
Photo by Jesse Edwards
Billed as a modern-day Western set in the deserts of Utah, Jesse Edwards’ Alta Valley follows Mexican-Navajo girl Lupe (Briza Covarrubias) as she sets off on a path to save her dying mother and confront her past. Within this journey are two warring films: one that wants to be a throwback Western with outlaws wearing pistols on their hips and getting into shootouts, and another that’s a modern-day telling of the plight of Native Americans. There are most certainly films that can marry these concepts, but this is not one of them.
This film is set in the present day but also has people acting like it’s the Wild West. The "cowboy" element is so cartoonish that it becomes distracting and downright silly. There are multiple shootouts — I'm talking car chases and dozens of gunshots back and forth with people dying — and not a single hint of a police presence. People wear six shooters and long dusters straight out of a John Wayne film, and walk, talk, and act like they’re from that era, but with the modern setting around them, it's just absurd. This is no tongue-in-cheek satire: it's like a wax museum came alive.
Furthermore, Edwards’ shoddy script leaves plot threads hanging, and the main crux of the film is completely ignored by the end. Add in actors who are struggling with the material and this just falls apart. Grade: F —Joel Winstead
Photo by Memi Koupa
A short film about a pink rabbit on roller skates: what more could you want? How about one that steals from the rich and gives to the poor? In Memi Koupa’s Creatures of the Night, a costumed pink rabbit makes its rounds after dark along the streets of a Greek town. Stealing from an ATM and fleeing from police, the rabbit glides in and out of traffic, giving to the homeless and making its mark on the citizens.
We are led to believe that, within the course of the evening, the rabbit's actions have caused such a stir in the community that all things pink have sold out in stores and people take to the street to celebrate and stand in solidarity. The film’s short runtime makes it hard to establish a timeline, so the events all feel like they happen within minutes. There are also a few other plot lines with various people doing everything from getting coffee to watering plants, and their relevance to the story is never explained, save for one.
Overall, the story here is threadbare, and a crowded narrative makes for a disjointed and confusing ride through town. Grade: F —JW
(Photo by Greg Fox)
