In a Month
2017 · 32m · Denmark
Directed by Jonas Kærup Hjort
Genres: comedy, dark comedy, fantasy
Tones: absurdist, contemplative, dark, darkly comic
In a factory in the middle of nowhere, workers wait indefinitely for rescue as a telephone rings each full moon with the same message: 'Be patient. We are on our way.' When the foreman takes his own life, the group's routines and sense of meaning collapse entirely.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Workers in a factory in the middle of nowhere waiting indefinitely for rescue, foreman dies, telephone rings every full moon — that's a fully realized Beckett premise at 32 minutes, and Danish crews can hold this register. Strong.
Beckett's grammar of suspended waiting honestly applied to a factory of men awaiting a telephone — and then the foreman's suicide — is genuine absurdist drama at thirty-two minutes, which is closer to mid-length than short. Hjort is doing serious work here.
31:48, 38.3K views, 575 likes — a half-hour Beckett-by-way-of-Danish-cinema factory waiting room is a real commitment to suspended duration. Cinematographer Jacob Sofussen and sound design by Jonas R. Kirkegaard; the runtime is the form's argument and Jonas Kærup Hjort apparently sustains it (comments calling it 'the most moving film I've seen in a long time').