Feijoada

Ambition can only be applauded. Short films are nothing is not brave and experimental. If simplicity is a gift, complexirty is a maze. Where is this going?

Alex Pachon's 14 minute black-and-white horror spoof is ambitious, experimental, brave and complex. It's also badly lit, not well acted and impossible to understand. If such a word can still be banded, without prejudice, in this world of political correctness, it is pretentious.

There are Spanish sub-titles until right at the end, when the film goes into colour, and there are English sub-titles. The story is told in chapters, such as The Highway and The Dinner, and flashbacks rewind incidents already watched, but from a separate viewpoint.

What appears to happen is that a middle-aged Spanish singer (Belicien Fuegos) comes to the apartment of a tall, sweaty-faced, pale Englishman (Russel York), bringing a tape of her songs. She is in a state of terror because a cooking pot fell from a highrise window and almost landed on her head.

The man drugs her with contaminated fruit juice, cooks a meal, which might include fried fingers (hers), and eats it, after which she awakens (fingers intact) and he ends up on the floor (dead?).

During the telling of this baffling tale, the camera shows off some neat moves.