Nacho Vigalondo is a name everyone is going to be much more familiar with very soon. After seeing this year's program of his short film work, I'm even more fascinated by this guy because now I'm along for the ride everyone else got on last year when Timecrimes (limited release Dec. 5th in the US) won everyone over. He was deservingly nominated for an Oscar a few years ago for 7:35 in the Morning, which closed the program.
Una leccion de cine (2005)
A Lesson in Filmmaking
I'm interspersing as many of his shorts as I can find, even if there are no subtitles. Apologies in advance if dates are incorrect.
The short program actually began with a trio of Spaghetti Western shorts made by filmmaker friends/associates/pals of Nacho's, which were entertaining enough, but things really began with this short, which could replace most undergraduate film programs in the United States. Nacho introduced it, as he did all subsequent shorts. Subtlety is one of the most important tenets of filmmaking, and Nacho gets it just right.
Domingo (2005)
Sunday
A couple is watching a UFO that's just sitting there, doing nothing. They fight and something amazing happens. Nacho prefaced this movie as "Cloverfield with no budget" and he mentioned at one point during the Q&A at the end that he's working out what he considers "the closest to a 'drama' that I would make" involving a man building a ramp to drive up and land on top of a UFO. Someone please give him the money to make that.
Codigo 7 (2002)
Code 7
Nacho's Phillip K. Dick-inspired, ultra-resourceful sci-fi trilogy magnum opus was one of his earliest short films. In advance of this epic of short proportions, he railed against Lord of the Rings, the Star Wars prequels, and trilogies as a concept. The first three seconds of this short film are more entertaining than any of the American-produced "spoof movies" that have been made of late. In all honesty, I have little to no tolerance for people who can't comprehend the sheer brilliance of the satire underneath the surface this piece or appreciate how it reveals Nacho to be more resourceful than most of Hollywood with no tools other than a camera.
Nacho as an Actor
Las adventuras galacticas de Jaime de Funes y Arancha (2003)
The Galactic Adventures of Jaime de Funes and Arancha
Nacho didn't direct this, but instead played the lead in it alongside Alejandro Tejeria, star of Codigo 7. In addition to this short, we got to see extended behind-the-scenes footage of them trying to get Nacho to vomit. He referred to his ability in this realm in this way: "Meryl Streep can cry, I can vomit."
Ecological Shorts
Nacho prefaced these as "work [he] did for the money." He's very ecologically-minded in his personal life, but in his filmmaking life he's more likely to be ecologically destructive. In the first short shown he points to the rationale behind low-rent production values in science fiction:
Ciencia ficcion barata (2007)
Cheap Science Fiction
In the second, his protagonist finds himself communicating across parallel universes with alternate versions of himself. A great example of sharp, quick cuts effectively used.
Cambiando el mundo (2007)
Changing the World
Directed for TV
Nacho directed the below-embedded sketches for La Hora Chananate, a sketch comedy show in Spain that he referred to as their contemporary version of Monty Python. The one I couldn't find was a really enjoyable Back to the Future 4 sketch that ends in a musical number.
La Hora Chananate: 24
La Hora Chananate: Gremlins 3
I like that we got a look at european TV sketch comedy and that the tack taken in all of them is rife with social commentary. My wife said the Back to the Future one was depressing, but I thought it was completely valid that someone is asking "where are the fucking flying cars?"
Glorious 35mm
Next were his two shorts shot on 35, both of which were great for different reasons. These two shorts were what we built to over the hour and a half, and the journey was very fulfilling for me. I overheard Nacho mention to someone after everything was all over that he didn't know what made him so nervous. I imagine it must have felt like a concert pianist having people watch tape of his first lesson through his opening at Carnegie Hall. The journey showed us all the real depth of Nacho's seeming effortless intuitive prowess, so the only reason for the nerves must have been an extension of his attention to precision.
Choque (2005)
Crash
I swear on my love of the cinema that this short film, titled "Crash" in english, is much better than the American feature of the same name. The American Crash takes itself so terribly seriously and lathers on the melodrama thicker than the most popular telenovelas, and Nacho takes the theme of juvenile conflict from the childish perspective and get the point across without belaboring it. I like other Paul Haggis work, but I really absolutely couldn't roll with the lesser, Best Picture-winning movie called Crash made in 2005. I would much rather hang with Crash in VigalondoVision for the ten minutes Nacho takes to craft his tale of irrational, hormonally-driven hatred and conflict.
7:35 de la manana (2003)
7:35 in the Morning
Please watch this short before reading my commentary.
This is the 2005 Oscar-nominated short that he is best known for, and he joked that after The Dark Knight, it can be seen as something of an origin story for a supervillain. 7:35 makes me wonder why no one has opened a checkbook and told Nacho to do whatever he wants. An entry on his blog reveals that in particular, he really does have the right temperament and sense of humor to take a valiant stab in the heart of what has become its own standalone genre along old standbys like Romantic Comedy and Dry English Period Drama.
American filmmakers have seemingly wholesale gone to the extreme of "let me just break through so I can sell out on being artistic and unique," following the Lucas model. Nacho is constantly itching to create something new and as much as he enjoys festivals like Fantastic Fest, he wrestles with the fact that going to them breaks up his capability for filmmaking. His hunger for filmmaking hasn't remotely died down, but has instead grown exponentially, which is all the better for all of us.
Nacho is a filmmaker who attends festivals his work is featured in and watches other people's films. Those of you who have been to festivals know how rare that is for someone who's sold a film in the US.
Fantastic Fest's summary clips from the screening I went to:
This post has helped me realize more than ever how crippling it is to not have accented spanish characters available for use in Movable Type. Solving that problem on the backend may take up my entire afternoon today, so RocknRolla and other stuff will pop up tomorrow or late tonight.