Visualization Excercise: Walking Your Dog in the Park
2018 · 10m · USA
Directed by Graham Mason
Genres: comedy, experimental
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, surreal
Framed as a guided visualization meant to relax you, the short instead delivers a strange encounter with a man who loves dogs and pries open a can of existential anxiety.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Hijacks the most insufferable format in modern audio — the guided meditation — and weaponizes it. I respect any filmmaker who picks a fight with mindfulness culture.
Guided-meditation form as delivery system for spiraling dread is the cleanest version of the wellness-podcast gag, and Mason's track record argues for craft. Yes.
Calm-app guided meditation framing as a delivery system for existential anxiety is a clean inversion and Anthony Oberbeck is a great instrument for it. Short summary but the comic architecture reads sharp.