Best DVD Buy of the Year

CINEMA 16 (The World 2008) ****
Various directors from all over the world

CINEMA 16 celebrates the latest in short films from the world over.  CINEMA 16’s latest release is an excellent 2-disc set featuring seldom and mostly never seen works from some of the world’s best directors – mostly famous already or upcoming.  It is difficult to say which ones are the best but my favorites of the lot belong to the ones by Guillermo del Toro (PAN’S LABYRINTH), Andrea Arnold (RED ROAD) and Sylvain Chomet (LES TRIPLETTES DE BELLEVILLE).

It will be too long to include reviews of all the 16 shorts but I have done my best in reviewing 5 of the ones I like best.  See below for review.

Commentaries are also provided by the directors on their films except WASP.

This is probably the best DVD buy this year (trust me on this) and would make the best festive season gift for a movie lover or upcoming filmmaker.

DONA LUPE
Directed by Guillermo del Toro

DONA LUPE is expert story-telling that exposes the dark wicked humor (example: the encaged bee in the toy) of del Toro that emerged in his later successful PAN’S LABYRINTH.  Senior lady Dona Lupe is in dire straits.  She is broke and the bank wants her place.  She rents out to two crooked cops who want to turn her out of her place if she does not keep her mouth shut to their ways.  “The fat one scares me”, she speaks to her dead husband’s portrait.  Del Toro uses light, expert camera angles, comic book style but not least of all, his great finesse in telling his tale of a widow’s survival in an uncaring world.  The film ends with a shoot-out between the DONA LUPE and the two cops.  Brilliant is hardly the word that can be used to describe this spellbinding short.

LA VIELLE DAME ET LES PIGEONS (THE OLD LADY AND THE PIGEONS)
Directed by Sylvain Chomet

From the director of the Oscar nominated LES TRIPLETTES DE BELLEVILLE comes a very dark and amusing story of an old lady that is not to be tampered with.  A starving but conniving gendarme dresses as a pigeon to enter the old lady’s house so that she will feed him with the delicacies she normally feeds her pigeons in the park.  The gendarme grows as greedy as he grows fat.  Finally he gets too big to remove his false pigeon head while the still unsuspecting old lady prepares to kill the fattened bird for her cat.  The last few minutes of the short give a new meaning to the phrase ‘dance of death’.  Excellent hand done animation clearly displaying both Chomet’s labour of love and incredible genius! 

TWO CARS ONE NIGHT
Directed by Taika Waititi

A Maori film about a (sort-of) love affair that blossoms between a pre-teen boy and a girl!  It all begins when a boy and a girl start trading insults when they are left behind in their respective cars outside a local pub by the parents.  What is remarkable about Waititi film is its simplicity, from his set-up to filming technique proving that one need not need lots of money to make a gem.  Waititi’s camera work, sharp black and white cinematography and story-telling style leaves one speechless by the end of the 11-minute short.

UNCLE
Directed by Adam Elliot

From down under comes this claymation biography UNCLE as told from the point of view and narration from a nephew.  From the nephew’s first visit to his uncle’s old age dementia to his death, Ellito’s tale is funny, sad but utterly moving.  The short has the feel of a primary school composition and that gives this animated story a certain freshness and originality.

WASP
Directed by Andrea Arnold