I try to conjure whole sentences to describe 'Next floor,' but mostly it's single words that plant themselves firmly in my mind: Grotesque. Alarming. Disconcerting. Consumption. Destruction. Sustainability. Escalating. Disturbing. Disgusting. Collapse. Mirror.
Wardrobe and makeup are impeccable. The props are vivid and eye-catching, to the point of (intended) revulsion - a reaction we should certainly have as well toward the nauseating gluttony of the dinner guests, all portrayed very forcibly with a ravenous, ceaseless hunger by the cast. That the guests' appearance contrasts so sharply with the meal laid before them, and their own deportment, does not go unnoticed. Nay, that is quite the point here, is it not?
The very setting is worth discussing: a nondescript building of impossible height, dimly lit and grungy in all corners - except for where the diners sit, which is illuminated by a grand chandelier. Even as servers, musicians, and the maitre d' operate in the obscure, dirty background to provide the endless feast, the guests feed with wild abandon under a fixture that in its prominent luminosity further obfuscates the scene beyond the table.
And then, when the overindulgence becomes too much, the dinner guests put themselves at risk of harm as the very structure around them fails. And still they continue.
'Next floor' is so thinly veiled that I'm not sure it can meaningfully be called a metaphor. The warning and condemnation of unending consumption is so very plain that one immediately feels a sense of guilt for having any part of it, even though we didn't choose it and to an extent it can't be helped - an unhelpful caveat that also gets portrayed here, in numbing harshness. All of this is glaringly emphasized with deliberate absence of subtlety in the unblinking stare of the final shot. Yes, we know this is us. We know it, and feel it, all too keenly.
The anti-consumerism, anti-capitalist, environmentalist message of this short is delivered with all the naked, uncompromising potency of a lightning bolt, and the cast and crew is to be commended alongside director Denis Villeneuve for bringing this stark, jarring vision to life.
Even as we flinch from the sting administered by this feature in cognizance of our own disregardful participation or delinquent inaction, it forces us to ask: Will we bring the feast to an end before we reach the next floor?
Wardrobe and makeup are impeccable. The props are vivid and eye-catching, to the point of (intended) revulsion - a reaction we should certainly have as well toward the nauseating gluttony of the dinner guests, all portrayed very forcibly with a ravenous, ceaseless hunger by the cast. That the guests' appearance contrasts so sharply with the meal laid before them, and their own deportment, does not go unnoticed. Nay, that is quite the point here, is it not?
The very setting is worth discussing: a nondescript building of impossible height, dimly lit and grungy in all corners - except for where the diners sit, which is illuminated by a grand chandelier. Even as servers, musicians, and the maitre d' operate in the obscure, dirty background to provide the endless feast, the guests feed with wild abandon under a fixture that in its prominent luminosity further obfuscates the scene beyond the table.
And then, when the overindulgence becomes too much, the dinner guests put themselves at risk of harm as the very structure around them fails. And still they continue.
'Next floor' is so thinly veiled that I'm not sure it can meaningfully be called a metaphor. The warning and condemnation of unending consumption is so very plain that one immediately feels a sense of guilt for having any part of it, even though we didn't choose it and to an extent it can't be helped - an unhelpful caveat that also gets portrayed here, in numbing harshness. All of this is glaringly emphasized with deliberate absence of subtlety in the unblinking stare of the final shot. Yes, we know this is us. We know it, and feel it, all too keenly.
The anti-consumerism, anti-capitalist, environmentalist message of this short is delivered with all the naked, uncompromising potency of a lightning bolt, and the cast and crew is to be commended alongside director Denis Villeneuve for bringing this stark, jarring vision to life.
Even as we flinch from the sting administered by this feature in cognizance of our own disregardful participation or delinquent inaction, it forces us to ask: Will we bring the feast to an end before we reach the next floor?