Minispectacles Albuquerque Straight

Why make a long film when a short one will do? Maarit Suomi-Väänänen is the uncrowned queen of the miniature film. She calls her minute-long movies “Minispectacles” or “cinematic haikus.” She points her camera at everyday situations in which the thin veneer of convention can’t disguise the madness and chaos that lies beneath. There is too little time or motivation to let the story develop, though one suspects there’s an absent chapter before and after it. The nonchalant, handheld technique reinforces the films’ rough-and-ready visual style. At first there doesn’t appear to be too much going on with the man in a motel room on Route 66 – except that his roommate is a young lynx. His sentences are repetitions of repetitions; his story is an elliptic, gradual, incremental monologue. Although not much seems to be happening in the one-minute fragments, you’ll view the man in a totally different light once you’ve seen them.