pinkface

This is magnificent stuff. In choosing to remove all non-music soundtrack elements, Neglify has managed to nonetheless craft a short that's extremely unsettling and very effective. The narrative thread is clear and quite straightforward to follow in broad strokes, and by focusing on The Man's struggle to understand what's happening around him Neglify we get a better understanding of his confusion and fear.

The music was a *perfect* choice, and Neglify deserves a great deal of credit for the time and effort it must have taken to synchronise so many of the events in the short to suitable cues in the music.

Visually it's great - I don't have any special fondness for grindhouse visuals, but they are neither intrusive nor extreme here and mainly add the feel of an old European horror VHS.

Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

I love Tool.
I love Timecrimes.
I love this edit.

What the, who the, how the, where the… when the? This short only gives you a vague idea of what’s going on, but that doesn’t matter as much as you might think. The silent treatment really works - it’s all about the music here. This short brings you on some sort of messed up journey, but it does it so well you just might wind up smiling at the worst parts.

From the DVD, Neglify Shorts Vol 1, and the Time Travel Consecution. This was from Timecrimes, a Spanish film I was unfamiliar with. From reading IMDB, I got the feeling Neg hugged the original plot tightly while shearing away an incredible amount of time.

Video: MPEG 720 X 480p. Bit of damage on this, deliberately done. I usually don’t like scratches or grain, specifically in recent films or movies I have seen because the results look sloppy and amateurish. I didn’t know this film, however, so I was completely fooled into thinking this was a cheap 70s production. I laughed when I realized my false assumption later. Well done.

Audio: 2 Channel AC3, 192 Kbps. One of the best/worst music tracks I have heard. The edgy, skittering violin makes one feel like they’re trapped in a room full of mosquitoes and crawly bugs. Selected music performs slight of hand distraction as it is so irritating one does not focus on jump cuts or any of the “laboratory bits.”

Enjoyment: End of the day, I appreciated more than enjoyed this. I chuckled at the end, but I had figured out what was going on and who was what. Thankfully, this was only 13 minutes instead of the original 92 minutes.

Nevertheless, for me, this was funnier than I expected and I laughed out loud a couple of times.

Audio/Video Quality: 9
It's "Grindhouse" but that doesn't mean the image shouldn't look really nice, which it does.

Visual Editing: 10
With the added visual look and feel this had a very Scandinavian feel somehow (Despite it being Spanish). It visually reminded me of things like 'The Killing' and 'Let The Right One In' which was nice because they are similarly unsettling pieces of work. The editing matched the rhythms of the music like a true pro.

Audio Editing: 9
I refuse to except that these visuals didn't always go with this music. They synched up perfectly with the mood and every possible moment and action. Don't bother trying to tell me different!

(FYI: I can't give a zero for "no audio editing" but I can't give a 10 either. 9 is pretty fair I feel)

Narrative: 10
It worked perfectly. I'm not what the rest of the film was about because the whole thing was here condensed into these 12 or so minutes.

Enjoyment: 10
The combination of frenetic strings and creeping visual horror was a perfect meld. It was freaky, strange and unnerving in all the right ways.