Connie & Sly
2021 · 5m · USA
Directed by Laurence Harlan Jacobs
Genres: crime, drama, experimental
Tones: absurdist, surreal, whimsical
Two bank-robber sisters' getaway goes sideways when they set off a nearby car alarm, whose siren pulls them into a trance and they perform a wild, hypnotic dance around the vehicle.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A heist film that ditches plot for pure movement—the car alarm becomes both McGuffin and séance, pulling two criminals into involuntary choreography that's genuinely unhinged. This is exactly the kind of premise that makes you say "wait, WHAT?" and somehow lands it.
Jacobs situates this squarely in experimental cinema's lineage of body-as-text and sound-as-narrative, where the siren functions as both structural anchor and symbolic possession—formally rigorous in its constraint, even if the tonal register resists easy categorization.
The decision to let the car alarm's pitch and rhythm *dictate* the performers' movement rather than score it is the hinge—suddenly a 4-minute short about two robbers becomes a study in involuntary physicality, and that single formal choice justifies the entire concept.