A Hiccup At The Opera
2025 · 1m · Denmark
Genres: comedy, musical, surrealism
Tones: absurdist, theatrical, whimsical
A seemingly regular choir performance turns out to be quite out of the ordinary: they all hiccup. Set to the Blue Danube Waltz, each choir member hiccups in their own unique way, and the slightly tardy lead singer climbs the extravagant set for the most powerful hiccup of them all.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A one-minute short that treats Strauss like a permission slip for anarchic silliness—hiccups as the great equalizer of high culture. Everyone else is looking for sincerity in absurdism; Felix sees a film that doesn't care what you expect from an opera house.
The execution lands somewhere between Busby Berkeley and Dada, though the theatrical scaffolding and ensemble blocking suggest a director aware of slapstick's lineage without quite earning the formal precision that would make this sing. The Blue Danube setting reads more like thematic novelty than considered reinvention.
The decision to stagger each hiccup's timbre and rhythm—turning a involuntary reflex into choreography—is the whole film, and it's the one choice that transforms a one-joke premise into something that actually *works*. That's craft disguised as accident.