Insomniac
2019 · 3m · USA
Directed by Anna Salinas
Genres: experimental
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
Three minutes inside a sleepless brain: disconnected images, mundane anxieties, voiceover static. A stream-of-consciousness X-ray of modern exhaustion.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Three minutes, no plot, no apology — the right size for the subject. Most experimental shorts overstay; this one clocks out before the melatonin kicks in.
Three minutes mimicking the texture of 3am thoughts — Salinas working in Maya Deren grammar at TikTok scale, with Frances Stark interior monologue. The runtime is the form.
Three-minute runtime that mimics the actual texture of 3 a.m. thoughts, with giant noses dancing on stage and yelling faces in blank rooms — the visual vocabulary is willing to be weird. Salinas using stock footage and stylized inserts to render the jumbled-mess-of-modern-mental-hyperactivity is the right brief.
Reviews
Effectively conveys the jumbled mess of modern mental hyperactivity and bodily exhaustion.