User Reviews

As with a lot of short films, R.Merthonensis is designed primarily to show off the director's visual flair rather than to have any coherent story. In it, a man wearing goggles sits in a rowing machine in a vast factory tinted on reds and greens. The camera slowly moves further and further upwards to the top of the machine, before revealing that all of the mans sweat and toil produces nothing more than a single drop of perfume, used to scent a rose bought by a well dressed gentleman.

I'm sure the story's all very symbolic and represents the struggles of the lower class against the ease of the ruling class (or something like that), but what really matters is the visual side of the film. It looks fantastic. The dark colours and factory noises make it somewhat reminiscent of David Lynch's Eraserhead, and the contraption itself is stunning. R.Merthonensis is only a few minutes long, and so is worth watching simply to see some stunning visuals and to be mightily confused.

A man sits in a framework of iron, working a type of rowing machine. This machine drives a seemingly endless system of cogs and tools. His toils are revealed as the process to manufacture a drop of water to decorate a rose produced from a vending machine.

What this film is all about is imagination and visual spectacle. The huge contraption driven by this one man is amazing in it's detail and it's planning. Each shot shows us more and more of it and it's fascinating to watch it be revealed. The use of brown-tinted film also gives the film a strange feel and adds to the overall effect. The visuals support the short where the story fails to deliver.

The story is unclear - what's it about? Well a man drives a machine to produce water for a rose for a rich man buying it from a machine. It could be drawing attention to the effort man has to put in, just to produce something that nature easily produces. Or it could be a statement on the plight of the worker - toiling to produce beauty that only the rich are able to enjoy. I like to think that it's a mix of both - but it's not clear, and to be honest, it's not important. The visuals cover all.

Overall this is worth a watch for the imagination it shows, however the story is unclear as to it's reason.