The ABCs of death is a collection of short films, created by twenty-six different directors. They were given the general concept of creating a film about death and then allowed total artistic freedom. Now, you may have seen the trailer, and think that you know what this film is going to be like, but I think that the trailer is slightly misleading and does not really reflect the film all that well. You may also be aware of its pretty poor reviews on sites such as IMDB and rottentomatoes, but I for one truly enjoyed the experience of watching this. It is like having your own short film festival, but compiled into one film for ease and with a singular theme. Having been to a couple of short film festivals before, I have to say that the hit to miss ratio is probably better with this film than from those experiences. You do have to be prepared that not all of them will be to your taste, and in fact some of them might put you off completely – there are some pretty controversial topics thrown in here – but to me, finding the odd uncomfortable section is to be expected with this kind of project. Just because you do not like one of the shorts, I think you shouldn’t judge the entire film or concept on that one director’s personal choice. It does mean that this is probably not for the easily offended or squeamish, but there are definitely more funny moments than “horrific” ones.
Dog Fight, directed by Marcel Sarmiento, was one of my favourites and as the name might suggest, this is essentially Raging Bull with a dog. You could say that using slow motion is a shortcut to “style,” but I think that in this film, coupled with indecipherable dialogue, it really works. The dog itself is the stand out actor for me, and there is one scene where it rolls its eyes to look at its master that really sticks out in my mind. I think that this is a very well shot piece, and the director throws in some almost humorous moments as an added twist.
Oxygen, directed by Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet is another heavily stylised piece, but this time, you have to work a bit harder at the beginning to fully understand what is happening. In the end, the plot is fairly straightforward, but it mixes metaphorical images with events to create a mood and the idea of what is happening without just showing it.
I did enjoy a number of the comedic shorts as well, with Nuptials, by Banjong Pisanthanakun and Toilet, by Lee Hardcastle being personal highlights.
While I was definitely glad to have watched the whole film, I do think that if I watched it again, I would only re-watch the letters that I enjoyed as some of them definitely are misses. I found Ben Wheatley’s film disappointing for example, but I think that this is mainly because I was expecting so much after watching Sightseers and Kill List. This might just be me excusing him because I loved his other films so much, but I think that his is by no means the worst, it just doesn’t really expand on its story or characters as much as it could have done.
Because the directors were given total artistic freedom, it does mean that this film as a whole does not fit easily into one camp or another – if you are looking for a splatter fest or to find some deeper meaning to life, then that is not really what is on offer. It does also seem that most of the directors took the prompt “a film about death” and created something that either had an abundance of nudity or toilet-based humour, but I personally prefer that angle to the idea of them all trying to say something “important” about mortality. I might be biased here, in that I feel it is really hard to say something meaningful without it being pretentious drivel, so I would rather someone took a more obscure approach and essentially avoided trying to make any point at all. To my mind twenty-six films trying to evoke clichéd emotions or repeating things that have been said a thousand times before would have been awful, and I think that so long as you know what to expect when you go in, there is a lot to get from this film. You can sample twenty-six different directors’ work and you get to see experimentation and potential new talent. That is obviously not to say that I enjoyed all of these shorts as there are a large number of different styles and genres attempted, not all of which worked for me personally. This does mean, however, that there should be at least something for most people.
I also think that with regards to the more controversial films, you cannot have it both ways. You can’t say that this film is derivative and that none of the directors tried to properly explore death, or that they all just wanted to make films about sex, and at the same time, criticise some of the shorts as being too controversial. To my mind, it is exactly what you should expect from this kind of project, especially when the directors are given creative control, but I think that it is only when artists are given freedom to push at boundaries that they have the chance of stumbling upon something great. So even if one particular short did not work for me, it is still a brave decision to free the directors, and it is something that should be encouraged.
chrisnevin 