Sometimes the blank ballots slip down my knee and the temptation to leave is almost overwhelming. But I know I will not leave. I will stay, because of that rare moment of magic that will come - possibly, inevitably, at some point. 2018 or otherwise, Manhattan festival remains deeply flawed, at times exasperating, but still there's no excuse to miss it.
BAGHEAD
Manhattan Short has a long history of trying to unsettle you from the off, and while Baghead is a well-executed little piece of witch whimsy, there is a sense that it's an opportunity wasted. Honestly, the idea was too good to let it die such a trivial, if amusing, death. But a decent start. 7/10
FIRE IN CARDBOARD CITY
Cardboard animation from New Zealand; funny, touching and smart. It may not amount to much, but this is adventurous art that is like a breath of fresh air in the face of all the self-important, humourless bullshit we are about to get into. 8/10
HOME SHOPPER
Marc Bolan said it best: "If you know how to rock, you don't have to shock". Home Shopper was shallow and dull. I have no idea how it made it to this stage. 1/10
HER
They keep showing the bottles of milk at the back of the car, and I can see why. These bottles of milk are the only claim this film has to being called art. Don't confuse political and social importance with an artistic statement. 4/10
TWO STRANGERS WHO MEET FIVE TIMES
Truly we are living in the most humourless of times if something as one-dimensional as this wins the first prize. This short film pulls tears out of your eye sockets with a pair of huge metal tweezers. The art of understatement is well and truly dead. 4/10
SOMEONE
Again, the piece is important and historically significant, but there's an ugly sense of the whole thing being staged and somewhat fake. I appreciate the story but it begs for respect and not love and I can't take this sort of art too seriously. I guess I've always wanted Anne Frank's diary to remain Anne Frank's diary. 5/10
CHUCHOTAGE
The joke was seen from a mile off so the fact that this got the second prize probably means that I'm badly out of loop. Remember the French entry No Comment from a few years back? That was good. This Hungarian film was not. 5/10
FAUVE
Objectively, this was the best film of Manhattan Short 2018, and the boy stole my heart. The final shot is devastating, and there is nothing cheap about the symbolism. Fauve stays with you. 9/10
LACRIMOSA
Like a moving painting by Salvador Dali, filtered through black and white. Lacrimosa was unique and almost self-consciously gorgeous, and I was afraid they would sell it cheap at the end. They did not. 8/10
I gave my vote to New Zealand.
