Why limit yourself to only mainstream, full length domestic films?
There’s so much out there in this world. I’m not saying that makes it better like some hipsters but I think it wouldn’t hurt to open up to other interesting pieces of work. So as you may be aware a lot of short films get made for festivals and can get nominated for Best Short at the Oscars. I think most others rarely get to see these. At most we’ll only ever get to see the few seconds of footage they show as they announce the nominees at the ceremony. So when this film came down the pipeline and is eligible for being nominated for the Oscars I was intrigued. The short is “Deer Flower” and it is probably something you’ll hear about.
Since this is a short film we’re going to do this slightly differently. No multi-ratings to come together to make an overall rating, just the film. The short is about a young boy being taken to a deer farm with his parents. Once there, they pay for one of the deers to have its antlers sawed off to collect the blood. The boy is given the blood to drink and then precedes to have interesting visions. A simple plot for a very short story. First let me mention the visuals as they’re the most striking part. They seem to be some form of stop-motion animation though unlike something like Kubo and the Two Strings, not trying to look realistic at all. All of the characters look as though they’re made up of bits of cardboard boxes to form these vaguely human shapes. It’s very bizarre looking, but at the same time utterly unique. It’s kind of like “Minecraft” by way of Jan Švankmajer. And it only gets stranger once the visions begin. On a technical level this is about as perfectly executed as is possible for the style they’re gong for. Whether or not that style will appeal to viewers is up to them.
Now to discuss more behind-the-scenes sort of things. The director is Kangmin Kim, a young South Korean filmmaker with an amazing eye. I feel as he moves forward, it will be easy to notice this with his style. Aside from that, my main takeaway from watching was what they were portraying. Sawing off a deer’s antler and then drinking the blood. Unless I’m just not in the popular crowd, I don’t believe this is a common thing in America. Sure enough I looked into it online and found this is an actual practice mostly in Eastern countries. I believe the idea is supposed to be a miracle cure for a variety of things. Although obviously not endorsed by medical professionals as raw blood tends not to be the most sanitary of substances. But some people apparently swear by it. And that’s something I really enjoyed about this short film. I probably never would have come across this sort of ritual and I’m always up for learning something new.
So would I recommend you watch this short film? Hell yes! Like I said, it’s bizarre but it’s only 8 mins so even if it does’t work for you or it’s too strange, that’s less than 10 minutes wasted. That’s the worst case scenario. You may find more interesting aspects to appreciate like I did. If you get the chance to see “Deer Flower” then I say take it.