Help me find a short that was shown on IFC a few years ago
March 8, 2007 4:49 PM Subscribe
Help me find a short that was shown on IFC a few years ago. The short consisted of a framing narrative with a film expert describing efforts to reconstruct a mysterious silent movie from film fragments that had been discovered with no indication of their proper order.
Various narratives are explored with the fragments in various orders. New fragments are introduced which throw previous narratives into question. The fragments include a man and woman talking at the top of a ruined tower, and walking around in the old castle, the man and woman being menaced (or seduced?) by a third figure, etc. etc.
Then, the framing story is exploded with the introduction of rival film experts, or rival filmmakers (I can't remember which) who challenge the provenance of the fragments, the sanity of the film expert, they bring in fragments of their own, and other twisty developments I can't recall. I remember it as being hilarious and haunting at the same time and I watched it whenever I could - but I never caught the name of it! I'd love to find it - I would almost bet it's on youtube but none of my searches have turned it up.
Various narratives are explored with the fragments in various orders. New fragments are introduced which throw previous narratives into question. The fragments include a man and woman talking at the top of a ruined tower, and walking around in the old castle, the man and woman being menaced (or seduced?) by a third figure, etc. etc.
Then, the framing story is exploded with the introduction of rival film experts, or rival filmmakers (I can't remember which) who challenge the provenance of the fragments, the sanity of the film expert, they bring in fragments of their own, and other twisty developments I can't recall. I remember it as being hilarious and haunting at the same time and I watched it whenever I could - but I never caught the name of it! I'd love to find it - I would almost bet it's on youtube but none of my searches have turned it up.
efforts to reconstruct a mysterious silent movie from film fragments that had been discovered with no indication of their proper order.
That sounds like the book Pattern Recognition, but the rest doesn't fit.
posted by Many bubbles at 5:26 PM on March 8, 2007
That sounds like the book Pattern Recognition, but the rest doesn't fit.
posted by Many bubbles at 5:26 PM on March 8, 2007
You could try filling in various things in the IMDB power search form. Genre: short (maybe also comedy?). Produced between 1990 and 2005? English language? then try different words in the plot summary field. (You may want to exclude TV series, too.) I didn't find anything obvious titles doing this, but maybe you'll be able to see a non-obvious title that fits.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:36 PM on March 8, 2007
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:36 PM on March 8, 2007
Response by poster: Thanks, rjs, but that's definitely not it. I've long wanted to see it though, just never got around to't.
posted by bovious at 5:50 AM on March 9, 2007
posted by bovious at 5:50 AM on March 9, 2007
It sounds similar structurally to Peter Greenaway's Vertical Features Remake, though I don't believe that any of that film matches the specific scenes you describe.
posted by jrb223 at 5:30 PM on March 10, 2007
posted by jrb223 at 5:30 PM on March 10, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Amanda B at 5:01 PM on March 8, 2007