Do You Want To Learn Magic?
2021 · 13m
Directed by Chris Fanelli
Genres: comedy, documentary, experimental
Tones: absurdist, contemplative, darkly comic
A real-life magician hosts an instructional magic video that drifts into personal crisis as he questions whether coin tricks are enough and attempts — and fails — a dangerous trash-can escape. A free-roaming blend of infomercial, personal essay, and identity implosion.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
He's a real magician having a real crisis inside a fake tutorial video — the layers collapse in the most gratifying way.
Instructional-magic-video that becomes a real magician's reckoning — that's the Werner Herzog reflexive-doc move scaled down, and a working magician at the center makes it more than a bit.
An instructional magic video that gradually mutates into the performer's genuine existential reckoning — VHS magic-tutorial Inside-energy with a real-life magician failing a dangerous trash-can escape is a great delivery vehicle for self-implosion.