Be Leaving
2022 · 18m
Directed by Brandon Wilson
Genres: dark comedy, experimental, surrealism
Tones: absurdist, dark, humorous
Two men in bloody shirts sit on a couch watching a French film and debate Cheese Whiz while a shell-shocked woman tries to make sense of their existence. An avant-garde film where the blood is unexplained, the conversation is banal, and the humor is completely deadpan.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Nobody mentions the blood. They just talk about cheese. That's the whole game and it's played completely straight. Very much my people.
Brandon Wilson's two-men-in-bloody-shirts-watching-a-French-film is pure post-Tarantino-via-Hong-Sang-soo absurdism; uncertainty as texture is risky but apparently the intended register.
Two visibly bloodied men whose violence is never referenced while the conversation stays entirely on Cheese Whiz and shower gel vs bars of soap — Beckett-meets-Tarantino-with-the-guns-edited-out is a register that's either genius or unbearable, and I lean genius.