Slap
2009 · 7m · United States
Directed by Grant Barbeito
Genres: dark comedy, satire
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, provocative
Two mechanics in a garage take a break from working on cars to argue about politics and world events, slapping each other silly whenever they disagree. Over 140 slaps land in under seven minutes — a satirical portrait of America's inability to discuss civil matters civilly.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
140 slaps as political punctuation—it's silly enough to work and subversive enough to sting, turning a premise that sounds ridiculous into something genuinely sharp about discourse collapse. Barbeito gets what most earnest satire misses: sometimes the form IS the joke, and that's enough.
The escalating slap-as-syntax is formally clever, but it risks collapsing into gimmick where a more restrained hand might've deepened the satire; the relentless physicality reads more as provocation than considered commentary on its own tradition of political mockery.
The single decision to weaponize the slap as rhythmic punctuation—each one landing with exact timing rather than ad-libbed chaos—transforms what could've been juvenile into something mechanically precise, where the sound design and editing choreography do the real work of the argument.
Festivals
- Tribeca Film Festival 2011
- WILDSound Film Festival 2010, Best Cinematography
- WILDSound Film Festival 2010, Best Acting
- Palm Springs International ShortFest 2010