Short Sighted

Top Five Shorts of 2003

Words: Holly Willis

"PLACEBO" BY SASKIA OLDE WOLBERS
Using stories torn from the tabloids, Dutch artist Saskia Olde Wolbers crafts a torrid story of desire and deception, told in a woman's flat voice-over. Wolbers pairs the melodramatic tale with images of a hospital room and corridors seemingly filled with oozing white glue-like goo, which drips slowly across the frame horizontally, from wall to wall. The dripping effect was achieved using paint flowing through wire constructions, but it's the emotional impact that registers here in a perfect depiction of life's torpor.

"FAWN" BY JENNIFER LANE
Jennifer Lane's four-minute short film "Fawn" is delectably odd, depicting a delicate encounter between a bald woman and fuzzy young deer within the stultifying d?cor of placid middle class American home. The strange sterility of the space, combined with the precise disparity between fur and skin, lends the film a rare intensity that will keep you on the edge of your seat. The film screened alongside "Placebo" in a show at UCLA's Hammer Museum called "Displaced," masterfully curated by Claudine Isé.

"SCENES AS A FILM" BY LINDSAY LJUNGKULL
Screened in a show titled "Hatch: Emerging Video Artists From Otis College," "Scenes as a Film" is a conceptual exploration announcing a disdain for grand cinematic narrative with overtly pedestrian filmmaking. Crooked intertitles introduce a series of scenes, followed by pieces of text and shaky images. The pairing of terms with their corresponding pictures illustrates the building blocks of cinema, and in rough-and-grainy black-and white, Ljungkull, channeling the wry humor of Hollis Frampton, conjures a brilliant study that's at once deliberately amateur and absolutely riveting.

"MARIO MERZ PORTRAIT" BY TACITA DEAN
In the Italian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, Tacita Dean's rich, meditative film portrait of Italian artist Mario Merz allows the gentle fading light and lush, organic textures surrounding him to point to his mortality. Shot on 16mm, the eight-minute piece is quietly stunning.

"THE SEA BENEATH WHICH SHE SLEEPS" BY TERRI PHILLIPS
A woman rises and falls back into a pool of water. Simple, lovely, existential.