Murder Crows
2025 · 2m · USA
Directed by Mark O'Connell
Genres: experimental
Tones: contemplative, surreal
An improvisational experimental film in the tradition of jazz and poetry, refusing conventional narrative.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Finally, a filmmaker who says 'no' to the tyranny of three-act structure and actually means it—Murder Crows commits to the jazz riff instead of selling out to narrative comfort, and that refusal is precisely what makes it dangerous.
O'Connell's improvisational method echoes the structural anarchism of '60s avant-garde cinema, yet the film's contemplative restraint suggests he understands the lineage well enough to subvert it deliberately rather than carelessly.
The decision to abandon plot entirely and trust pure image-sound momentum is bold, but it's the editing rhythms—the way cuts sync with breath rather than story beats—that makes the experiment actually land instead of collapse into pretension.