Piano Man
2009 · 10m · USA
Directed by Andrew Wilding
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: darkly comic, melancholic, theatrical
A black comedy described by its own creators as 'high tragedy' — starring Antony Langdon in a film that navigates the intersection between comedy and catastrophe at the piano.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
The film announces itself as both a black comedy AND a high tragedy, as if daring you to pick which it is. Antony Langdon is at a piano and something is going very wrong in a very funny way. Aesthete Films knew what they had. So do I.
A short that bills itself as 'black comedy/high tragedy' simultaneously is staking out an irresolvable mode rather than choosing — Withnail-adjacent tonally. The page tells me the ambition more than the execution, but I'm willing.
Andrew Wilding billing his short as simultaneously 'black comedy' and 'high tragedy' — that's either ambitious positioning or unresolved tone. Antony Langdon and an Eric Iskowitz score, shot on a Red One, but the framing is hedging.