This week we actually had a choice of three short films by Canadian filmmaker Jamie Travis from his Saddest Children in the World trilogy. The tone of his films is quite Lynchian while the look is quite Andersonesque and I ended up really loving that hybrid of the macabre and the bright composition. My favorite film ended up being The Saddest Boy in the World because it's simultaneously his darkest (the opening and closing shot is a boy about to hang himself) and funniest film. There are a few shots in the film that highlights this contrasting combo, but I picked the one below as my best shot:
This whole sequence is when I realized how hilarious the film was and how much I quite loved it. Just the juxtaposition of the slur graffiti'd on Timmy's missing posters with Timmy standing there after his kidnapper returns him is the height of surreal absurdity that I can get behind. This shot also highlights Travis' queer sensibilities which he displays in his other Saddest Children films and my pick for runner-up shots (and best shots for their respective films).
There's the pink "good bye" cursively written in the mirror from a child wanting to escape an overbearing parent in Why the Anderson Children Didn't Come To Dinner.
And finally, there's all those rainbows in the background in The Armoire.
really glad you liked the humor in SADDEST BOY. it's so perverse and that kidnapping sequence is just genius. as for The Armoire, i almost chose that shot because i love what's going on in the scene with that as the backdrop
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