Spike Jonze’s knack for surrealism makes him one fun director to keep an eye on, from full featured Kaufman scripts to his latest work, “I’m Here.”
Hollywood is losing the glamour that used to catch my attention. Rather than pioneering new methods of storytelling, Hollywood takes the easy way out by recycling old ideas and making them three-dimensional. Spike Jonze caught my attention earlier this year when he released his short film free for audiences over 18 online at imheremovie.com on Mar 19.
The layout and interface of the website cleverly simulates an actual theatre —one which you can walk in and go to the ticket booth and choose whether you want to watch the movie or the bonus material. The sky backdrop even adapts itself to real time, which is very neat. My only complain was the electronic statement, which took several refreshes to work on two different browsers.
Absolut Vodka endowed the project and gave Jonze complete artistic freedom to produce a film about anything. With about half an hour of run time, Jonze created something sweet and memorable. The aesthetics and costumes are idiosyncratic and very Jonzesque. All characters were well developed and every scene were oh-so relatable to the youth culture, which is Jonze’s niche.
The story centers around Sheldon, a much-reserved blue collar droid in an alternate reality not so different than ours other than humans and robots inhabit the societies. As a robot, he lives a very mundane and sheltered life —working day shifts at the public library and returning to his studio apartment to charge his batteries. Life takes a sharp turn for the better when he meets Anne, an edgy fembot who is a real live wire.
The premise of the film is pretty much a boy-meets-girl-and-then-boy-sacrificing-it-all-for-the- “one”-type deal. Jonze adds his own flavor and tweaks a few screws to create something a little different.
Spare half an hour of your time and you won’t regret it.
Honestly, I thought the film tried a little too hard to be poignant. Why couldn't the female robot just buy freakin' spare parts from a robot store? Did Sheldon REALLY have to sacrifice all of his robot parts for her? Spike Jonez tries to play on the idea of "Love takes precedence before all things" but quite frankly, I think his take on the theme is just plain silly.
ReplyDeleteBut I do agree that the aesthetics of the movie were a nice change.
In response to anonymous 1: You have to remember this is a short film. So Jonze would have had to compress a lot of his ideas into half an hour of film, which might make the movie come off as trying to be very sensual or "poignant."
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