THINGS

Every year we await for the king of the surreal strange black and white film in this competition. Charlie Bleakley with his piggy horror film in 2010, THE OOZE in 2021 and now THINGS comes along to snatch away the crown from THERE CAME A SPIDER and bring it home to Wellington, overt Lynch influences seeping out of every oraface and tributes to Yorgas Lanthimos notwithstanding.

That's a phenomenal lens you have there! Loved the curvature you created to bend the world at will and create a genuinely distorted vision where needed, whilst the story was handled with great care to let the visual splendour of The Faerie and The King of Things soak into our eye balls in full wide framed glory.

I feel there is just enough of a plot here as a salesman tries to sell things, and keep things, and do so with a genuine sense of urgency. They are precious and the trepidation is real as to why.

The beats you added were really well done, breaking up the flow and giving the film warm and guile through the twins and the interaction with the lovers.

Big question. Was it doing enough in a new way or was it relying on tones, vibe and homages? Honestly to me it was fresh as a daisy because its 'weirdness' was really using competition elements to drive the story. And that is hard to fault.

Last year my favorite film by far was Sweets by Disqualified Tim. And this year seeing your one, I'm beginning to suspect that I have a thing for surrealist black and white films that taking place in strange lands that seem to be cobbled together, staring a cast of strange and wonderful characters. particularly when said film's title is a monosyllabic plural noun.

I love every choice you made.

One of the finest AuroraVision productions to date! Cannot wait to see what they get up to next year!