The Bloody Olive
1996 · 11m · Belgium
Directed by Vincent Bal
Genres: comedy, crime, dark comedy
Tones: absurdist, dark, whimsical
On Christmas Eve, a couple receive an unwanted guest who reveals the husband has embezzled money — a confrontation that spirals into increasingly absurd twists of murder, resurrection, and escalating chaos.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Bal demonstrates that the best genre parodies don't mock their subject — they love it so recklessly they can't stop topping themselves, and every twist here lands harder than the last.
1996 Belgian noir parody that stacks reversals until exhausted — sounds like the kind of film film students rediscover and overrate. Pulp Fiction comparison from '96 dates the ambition.
A '96 Belgian noir parody that stacks impossible plot reversals with gleeful escalation — pre-Pulp Fiction-via-Coens energy on a Christmas Eve at 10 minutes is a specific pleasure. Older but the form is taut and the chaos earned.
Festivals
- Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 1997, Youth Jury Award