Just a Minute!

My fascination with one minute films began when, on a lazy pandemic afternoon, I stumbled upon a Brazilian energy drink commercial which humorously uses the ‘Buttered Cat paradox’ to advertise its product. Although a commercial, it’s ability to humour me in 60 seconds with little to no dialogue appealed to my non-committal mood. What followed was an intriguing journey down Youtube’s rabbit hole of one minute films. Soon, my random wandering turned into an organised one as I discovered the goldmine of one minute films: Filminute (an international one-minute film festival which offers some of the best one minute films from across the world). The range and variety of these films is baffling!
From psychological thrillers to historical fantasies, from dealing with issues as grave as the refugee crisis to those as silly and wholesome as a love crisis of mosquitoes, they leave no genre uncovered. One minute films prove that any story, however complex and layered, can be told within 60 seconds and with no less conviction than your average feature films. Here are some of my favourite one minute films which stayed with me for much longer.

1. Open the box (2014), Sergio Cano
https://youtu.be/cAywSoFKOZo

Will you replay this film the moment it ends? Will you be in utter awe of how brilliant it is? Yes, and yes. This Spanish film may be the most unsettling one in the list because of its eerie delivery and enigmatic theme. For me, it’s one of those films that you never actually stop thinking about and keep reimagining all its possible interpretations.

Open the Box uses a joke that you’d normally hear from a kid, to explore a complicated relationship between a daughter and her aged father. What seems to start off as a silly game soon acquires an ominous tone, and ends abruptly on an extremely uneasy note. It’s hard to say what exactly their backstory is: was the daughter hinting at something sinister? Was she trying to evoke a youthful bliss in her as-good-as-dead father? With sharp dialogues, impeccable acting and an intriguing premise, the film masterfully conveys the tension between ageing parents living with their children- all in 40 seconds!


2. Wildebeest (2012), Birdbox Studios
 https://youtu.be/JMJXvsCLu6s

 If you are familiar with Birdbox Studios, you know that you’re in for a minute (or less) long wholesome treat of edgy humour featuring animated animals. Wildebeest is one such film- wise and playful, this zero cut, no dialogue short essentially conveys a never-ending argument.

It’s the lucidity of this short that amazes me every time I watch it. Within a minute, the film establishes a rather wordy conversation through two awfully simple graphics only to end with the exact conundrum it started with. Other equally entertaining animations of Birdbox Studios include Carpark, Dinner, Chop Chop.

3. M22 (2013), David Stevens
https://youtu.be/sr3pMB3VCRM

Why do I think that M22 is a surreal, phenomenal film, you ask? First of all, M22 is a documentary. Second of all, M22 is a minute long documentary! The film is about the director’s (David Stevens) stuttering and his struggle and dread for producing sound. It captures with odd precision what Stevens goes through when the words just won’t come out. Stevens in an interview mentioned how M22 was started with the desire to visualize in a clear and concise manner the inner world of a stutterer. And it achieves this with swift editing and use of uncanny sounds. An absolutely stunning short.

Fun trivia: the call made in the film by Stevens was a real one made to a T-Mobile call centre and the help desk person’s “hello…hello” response to his silence was a genuine, spontaneous response.

A similar film (although not a documentary) is Allergy (2021). Allergy, like M22, aims to visualize in surreal details an experience or a condition that is usually tough to articulate. The condition being an allergy attack in this short, it uses a rather intense imagery of an experience which is not that rare. Goosebumps. Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/Jq7Ssgf7GX8


4. Migration (2013), Andrey Levkovitch
https://youtu.be/xgDdKIfAZVg

At the risk of sounding like your 8th grade English teacher who was bizarrely passionate about that one infamous blue curtain- watch Migration, a beautifully shot, cinematically pleasing film that will leave you speechless and wondering how the filmmaker said and made you feel so much with a few red balloons and some snow. It’s an experimental film; nothing really happens. The only clue to its interpretation is the title. It drives the film- watching this short without knowing the title (I tried), the experience would perhaps seem nonsensical (albeit cinematically pleasing). While you may not get the satisfaction of decoding the exact meaning of the film- maybe it’s not as deep as you think, but you cannot not appreciate the filmmaker’s vivid imagination, visualizing migration using big red contrasting balloons floating on crystal white snow. This film was made for the audience to reflect, and reflect you shall.

5. The Present (2015), James Cookson
https://youtu.be/lX8Negj4RpQ

What I find really intriguing about one minute films is that it usually offers you just one scene- a minute of one’s life. This one scene is to explain the film, its theme, and motive. With so much at stake, which minute of one’s life the filmmaker chooses to explore becomes a crucial and game changing decision.

For example, our next short, The Present, explores the often pondered upon question: ls ignorance bliss? Especially when it involves the death of a loved one? Now, to express this rather complex and debatable theme and to give justice to it in a minute using just a scene or two, is what I find baffling. In this short, the filmmaker chooses to capture the minute before a man has to deliver bad news to someone. Acute close-ups establish a difficult and overwhelming argument that the man is having with his conscience and add to the gravity of the situation. With one part of him wanting to get over with his duty of delivering ‘the present’ and another part wanting to let the receiver’s ignorance last while it can, he successfully invites the audience to join him in his dilemma.

 
6. Kick Me (2018), Jefferies Brothers
https://youtu.be/4DKSduhMls0

If Wes Anderson made a musical romantic comedy, this would be it. Kick Me is fun and quirky while narrating the story of ‘an office bully who changes a co-worker’s life with the power of sticky notes.’ It creatively uses a famous childhood prank to unfold a rather ingenious story without a single dialogue. I’ll limit myself with this description lest it spoil the amusing one minute experience.
It’s worth appreciating how the same setting, that of an office, is used to narrate the entire story- the blocking is genius, guaranteeing the short ‘Best Directing’ in Filmstro & Film Riot One Minute Short Film Competition 2018. 

To mention the obvious, this list is by no means exhaustive. There are innumerable equally if not more enticing one minute films out there. If I were to extend this list, following films would definitely feature in it: Autumn (2021), Leo (2021), Brains (2019), I’m Not Afraid (2019)
Space Oddity (2018), Sofaholic (2017).

My random introduction to one minute films compelled me to look at the art of storytelling in a completely new and exciting light. It made me appreciate cinema (however short) as a medium with much more humility than ever before. If nothing, it made my lazy pandemic afternoons lazier as I spent them bingeing one minute shorts for hours, each leaving me with “what just happened?” state of fascination. To come full circle, here’s the link to that Brazilian energy drink commercial which started it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8yW5cyXXRc

Srushti Saravade
3rd Year, B.A. Programme