Short Movie Roundup 01 January 2023

Portrait of God

Director: Dylan Clark

This tiny piece of golden cinema is the best movie I could find this week to start of 2023 with, originally released 4 months ago, it’s causing a storm in the world of shorts. A young woman is running through a thesis, a presentation about what God might look like, after showing a painting to a few subjects they describe their experience with the painting, after listening to these vivid descriptions the girl has her own “religious” experience.

There’s a pivotal point in Takashi Annô’s Anime film Dark Myth where a researcher finds a pool that will grant her everlasting life, she climbs in and returns as a hairy bug eyed monster, the lesson, out human bodies can’t go on forever so it has to transform you into a creature that “can” live forever, be careful what you wish for. There is a similar analogy playing out here, we want to see god in the naive belief that it will be a hugely positive and beautiful event but there’s the potential that it’s something so alien to us, that the event might be scary and unending. A glimpse of eternity is still an eternity right?

Clark manages to conjure up a visual nightmare that is chilling as well as deeply profound. The artistic lighting of each scene and unwillingness to set character in the center of any frame, the uneven and beautifully placed cameras really spark an emotion and give the film a natural feel. But if you really want to “get” everything about this film, much like the tricks used in other classics such as Hereditary you might need to turn the brightness up and check out for delightful extras.

Not only is it a super brave subject to approach, questioning and assuming to depict the face of god will upset others and intrigue a few more but to also make it supernatural and creepy is so gnostic and exactly what the horror community needs to work with more judging by the results of this frightful short.