The Rules of the Game

            It would certainly be easy to write a traditional, linear narrative about a man taking revenge on the man who dares to have an affair with his fiancée. However, in The Rules of the Game, scriptwriter Sam Michell crafts a plotline that maximizes curiosity and tension in the audience.

            Michell has our main character breaking the fourth wall and outlining to the audience what a hypothetical man (clearly himself) would do in a hypothetical situation concerning an affair (clearly what he’s embroiled in). Creatively, the character explains everything while moving about an estate he’s renting, speaking in between his trivial explorations and wanderings.

            This formula puts the audience on edge. The first question runs through the background of the mind of the viewer: why is he in this mansion? Next, the obvious follow-up: how did he get here? Because the setting of the storyteller does not match with the settings of the stories he is telling, the audience tries to find a logical link between the two. This absolutely glued me to the screen. Maybe it’s the location of a funeral. Maybe he’s setting some sort of trap. Maybe it’s a fake honeymoon he plans on luring his amorous fiancée and best man to. No matter what the speculation, the outcome is that the audience is fully engaged and emotionally invested in the storyline.

            This is enhanced by the character’s constant steps backward in his stories. With the phrase “of course not”, our lead takes back a part of his story quicker than it happened. Suddenly, he didn’t castrate the best man, or he didn’t plan out the elaborate revelation of incriminating pictures at his wedding. This had me completely taken aback. Unusually enough, Michell seems ready to throw away lengthy chunks of character and plot development at a moment’s notice – and the result is shocking. If any of the main character’s plans and back-stories could be false, then what is the true reason he is in the estate? We as an audience are kept constantly guessing, and, inevitably, burning with curiosity to find out the truth.

            Although the impeccable acting, brilliant camerawork and quirky dark humor completed this short movie, the script structure was the root of its success. Telling the story from an unreliable narrator’s flashbacks kept a standard tale of revenge very fresh indeed.

Watch Here: The Rules of the Game

Tune for Two

            I won’t pretend to fully understand Gunnar Järvstad’s Tune for Two. I’m not sure if its intent is to make the viewer laugh or to make him question humanity and morality. What I do know, however, is that the juxtaposition of execution and childhood song was presented with flawless artistry. That makes this short one of the most emotionally effective that I’ve seen in a long time.

            The choice to use a POV shot to establish setting and open the film contributed much to how we feel about the character bound to be executed. By seeing the action from his eyes, we immediately feel like we should relate to him on a subconscious level. The edge blurring and slow opening and closing of the “eyelids” add to the disorienting realism. These touches make the POV feel as if it’s trapping the viewer rather than empowering them – as we see the grave being dug and “our” body being dragged helplessly, we feel weak and unable to move. The feeling of panic ensues, setting the stage for the strangely comic twist.

            But before we arrive at that twist, the dramatic moments are further enhanced by the impeccable acting displayed by our two (and only) leads. What impressed me about the victim’s acting was actually what was left out. In intense emotional scenes like the one that we are given here (a man knowing he is about to die), I feel that it would be easy to overact and force out sobbing and screams. However, the actor playing the victim does nothing of the sort. He looks up at the sky in pain, very slightly blinking his eyes at the stark white sunlight. He seems to choke intermittently, swaying from accepting his fate and questioning how the hell he ended up in this morbid situation. These small cues are subtle, but cause our emotional reaction to hit far deeper than a clearly fake acting session.

            Due to this intricate setup, the singing of “Mahna Mahna” is so violently unexpected that it forces uncomfortable laughter or at least a smile. Again, the acting impresses as the killer allows his icy glare to be murderous and unfeeling as well as recognizably human. He does this with, once again, almost no obvious cues. The ensuing contrast in tone turns this film into a very unusual dark comedy.

Watch here: Tune for Two

The Tea Master

            The theme of mastery plays a great role in Aaron Au’s The Tea Master. The focus of the film was not on the mastery of swordplay or the mastery of the tea ceremony as much as it was on the parallels between the two. The concept of mastery in general was in fact the basis of the short.

            The cinematic choices reflect this focus. Consider the samurai’s opening battle scene. Instead of placing the emphasis on the action and results of his fighting, like most movies, the film focuses on the art of his form. Rather than display the gruesome destruction of hand-to-hand combat, Au abstracts the violence and makes it thoroughly aesthetic. Importantly, he uses an austere black and white to depict the fight scene. The clean lines of the black garbed “ninjas” evoke the artistry of calligraphy, and the sparing use of the color red – for blood- cuts across the screen in a striking manner. The result is that the fight is a display of choreography, of absolutely assured mastery, rather than what it really is – a fight. The use of black and white also serves to distance the audience form the reality of violence, making the swordplay even more aesthetically abstract. In addition, the director’s choice to have the assailants masked creates an emotional separation between them and the audience. Since we see them as identical, masked attackers, we do not recognize them as people that may suffer at the hands of the samurai. All that remains is the beautiful manner in which the samurai controls his blade.

            Of course, the tea master himself is central to the film. The only scene in which he actually goes about making tea centers on his mastery – just in a different way than the samurai. Effective use of slow motion is central to the scene. The extended focus on the pouring and measuring, the lingering sound of droplets of tea falling into the cup – all of this mirrors the calm way in which the tea master prepares his brew. His assured mastery and his utterly relaxed state of mind are reflected in the pacing of the shots. The atmosphere of the scene fills in his emotion and his relief when he is finally granted the opportunity to perform something he knows inside and out.

            The fact that the short ends with a scene interlacing the tea master’s tea ceremony and the actions of him pulling out his sword proves that the focus of the film was on mastery itself. The way for the tea master to prevail in his challenge was not to adopt skills that he was unfit for, but rather to use his lifelong position to prove his worth.

Watch Here:  The Tea Master