Earl & Muriel's Rural Burial

Shock horror I'm a massive nerd in this competition for when it feels to me that teams who know what the fuck is up pay homage to classic cinema. For me, this marvelous short by Jake The Sound Guy felt like a love letter to Tarkovsky in the best possible way.

With some of the best cinematography I've ever seen in the competition, Jake and co immediately catch our attention with a very European 1.66:1 frame. The glimmer of light of sunset washes our protagonist as he correlates a freshly dug grave with a beautiful personal hand-drawn picture and then the phone rings. With not a cellphone in sight, of course.

The idealistic rural landscape genuinely feels like it must be drawing parallels with THE SACRIFICE. Eerily similar in tone and framing the soundscape gives weight to the impression that this was an act done out of love and necessity, not some TED BUNDY wannabe.

At the same time we get a classic cinema of unease vibe on the NZ farm ala JACK BE NIMBLE, and venturing away from the gravity of the opening grief allows the team to provide the beats to the story that tick the box for the comedy aspect asked of them.

The film is at times intense, with dead souls staring at each other and proving that adage that looks can kill. Yet there's beauty in proceedings; with focused shots on eyes working as a metaphor that the eyes are the window to the soul. Those aligned with the dead work in stillness and silence; dirt, mud, red, dark blue, purple and black whilst the intrusion comes from genuine tourists. Wrong place, wrong time to be loud and colourful.

Ultimately the film feels like a love letter that you should respect the dead and grief. For me tonally they hit it out of the park. I might be taking a swing with some of these thoughts about what I thought I saw parlayed on screen, but the team also swung for the fences and for me hit a home run. Great work Jake the Sound Guy!

The 'look' of this movie is incredible. Moody, dramatic and clearly a lot of time spent on lighting and colour. Incredible acting to go along with it and a truly spooky story that I'm still trying to unpack and full understand. It's such a beautiful movie, I struggle with the tiny niggle in the back of my brain that the comedy feels so subtle to me, I wouldn't personally categorise it as 'comedy-horror'. That's very much personal taste thought, and certainly semantics in what is a gorgeous, disconcerting and wonderfully crafted film.

This team can create a Vincent Ward-styled elevated horror in 48 hours, and that's commendable. But the atmosphere is so dense that the comedy warps into even more atmosphere, which I feel is a missed opportunity to experiment. Tarkovsky is great, but I don't think there is one joke in his entire body of work: no farts, no banana peels, no Benny Hill chases. Art films are taken seriously, comedy is considered lowbrow, but why? Dada, Pop art, cubism, and more art movements are attempts to answer this question by fusing the two together. I think if the film had committed to genre more deeply, it would have arrived at something artistically daring and innovative. You are an extremely talented team-- push yourselves to experiment!

Holy moly. This is why I love this comp.
This film is a special type of short. The vision and direction of the film is so confident and bold that it demands your attention and intrigues you from the first shot - not letting go until the final closing image.
Did I understand everything? absolutely not. Does that matter? Not one bit. I was along for where ever this film was going and loving every turn it took us on.
Watching it feels like you're in the hands of creators at the peak of thier craft. I want more from these guys - more meaning I want a feature film. SUPERB!!