"Heureux anniversaire" (1962), the acclaimed short film by Pierre Étaix and Jean-Claude Carrière, is wonderful from beginning to end. It's so tightly constructed, each frame exuding immediacy that keeps the thing going forward, reaching its climax in a mélange of comedic causality. Everything that happens has a reason in the film, and once we are taught that it becomes an avalanche of comedy, really, and knowing we will find the most insignificant- seeming details ahead of us also electrifies everything.
The motif is time, and more specifically the passing of time. Just as the short film has much time to tell us what it wants to say, the film centers on around a task that has to be completed in a short time. I think it's done very well, and there's even a sense of calm that surrounds the hectic moments. How difficult it is to do something like it in a short film.
The motif is time, and more specifically the passing of time. Just as the short film has much time to tell us what it wants to say, the film centers on around a task that has to be completed in a short time. I think it's done very well, and there's even a sense of calm that surrounds the hectic moments. How difficult it is to do something like it in a short film.