We live in a world where producers demand newbie directors to shoot a trailer or a set of scenes from the script to prove their worth. This is totally a valid case as it is the Producer’s money after all. But to gain entry to narrate a script to a producer or even to join as a Director’s assistant, short films seem to be the order of the day, In India at least! This again seems to be a justifiable expectation. What makes these grapes turn sour is the attempt to stretch these short films into laborious feature films where the short-film director lazily inserts songs, comedy sequences & fights to make the short into a passable feature. That is a strict No-No!

The point that needs to be seen beyond business potential of short films is that they have lives of their own, cocooning creativity in all its freshness. The amount of respect the medium commands across the world is illustrated by the fact that most Film Festivals have a Short Film Corner, Sundance & Cannes coming to mind immediately. A glance at the Academy of Motion Pictures in charge of the Oscars shows that there are three categories for Short-Films: Documentary Short Subject, Short Film Animated & Short Film Live Action. Check out this insanely cute short, Feast that won the Short Film Animated Oscar couple of months ago.

It is commendable that in our Tamizh Cinema a youngster, Karthik Subburaj, has established Bench Talkies as an umbrella for short films. That he has even managed to get a theatrical release for 6 of them, as an Anthology, under the name of ‘First Bench’, in this highly uncertain terrain of feature films lying in the cans for ages, is nothing short of incredible. While the reviews have been middling for First Bench, with voices raised on the selection of 6 short films, each belonging to a different genre, hats off to the team for the effort. Considering that there have been some similar ventures from Big names up North of India, like Dus Kahaniyaan (2007), I Am (2010) and Bombay Talkies (2013), this pioneering attempt by the new-gen directors must be encouraged & can only get better.

On that vein of Anthology films, I recently chanced upon this Argentinian Anthology film, Wild Tales (Relatos salvajes) and was completely blown over by it. In-spite of being exposed to many Foreign-language films, I generally have an aversion towards slow-moving & abstract ones and I was expecting this one too to have that undertone. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that every single part although daring & sometimes even unthinkable or un-relatable, had a clear opening, middle &conclusion. The richness & the attention-to-detail in production design bowled me over and made me realize that writer-director, Damián Szifron was in complete control. The clarity on the duration & setup of each part stand as epitome for his respect to Short-Films as a medium. Each of these parts would have looked jaded &ended up wearing the audience down if the duration had been even slightly longer. For the audience to have an impact in such a minimal amount of time, selecting actors who can hold their own are paramount. While I know only Ricardo Darín from the cast, every one of them (including that cook from the final short, in fact, strike that – especially the cook from the final short) was outstanding. Talk about excellence in casting! Thematically all the shorts come under ordinary folks reacting in extraordinarily violent & maniacal fashions to superlative degrees that they themselves did not realize, was lying within them. I also wonder if these shorts could have been as lively as they were without the masterful Gustavo Santaolalla’s rollicking background score. A soundtrack that is certainly worth adding to your collection. In fact, why just the soundtrack, this movie’s Blu-ray disc ought to be one among the collections of film fanatics. I am deliberately not delving into even one plot of the 6 shorts that make up this anthology, for it will certainly spoil the experience. But hey, my favorite was “El másfuerte” (Spanish: The Strongest), which I guess is Damián’s homage to Spielberg’s Duel! Now, in true Hagrid spirit, I shouldn’t have told you that!

Jokes apart, now imagine sucking the spirit out of these 6 shorts by making feature films out of them. How cruel would that be? Hope fans of Wild Tales would get the drift. On a positive note, Karthik Subburaj & Bench Talkies have something concrete to aspire to in ‘Wild Tales’! Hope he makes this dream realistic.

Column written by Anand Sethuraman.