400 MPH
2019 · 5m · España
Directed by Alice Lefort, Julia Chaix, Lorraine Desserre, Natacha Pianeti, Paul-Eugène Dannaud, Quentin Tireloque
Genres: comedy, fantasy, surrealism
Tones: absurdist, surreal, whimsical
On the Bonneville salt flats, a chimpanzee named Icarus tries to reach the maximum limit of 400 mph, racing through car after car to go beyond that incredible frontier, but will it be enough to satisfy his hunger for speed?
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A chimp chasing 400 mph on the Bonneville flats is exactly the kind of premise that makes you pause—it's absurdist comedy that doesn't beg permission, and the sheer weirdness of the central conceit (existential speed hunger? in a primate?) is what most scouts would dismiss as student-film nonsense, but that's precisely why it works.
Six directors collaborating on a five-minute surrealist sprint shows technical confidence, though the film's resistance to narrative closure and its formal commitment to escalation over resolution places it in conversation with experimental shorts rather than traditional comedy—a choice that demands respect even if it sacrifices some accessibility.
The key decision here is treating the chimp's relentless car-switching not as a gag but as visual rhythm; that montage momentum—the editing's refusal to let us rest between vehicles—is what transforms a silly premise into something genuinely propulsive and oddly moving.