Boiler
From the Archives
•
9m 2s
A young couple heads home for the holidays to find themselves trapped at a family dinner where awkward tension boils into rage. Avant-garde filmmaking based on a poem by Bob Holman, “Boiler” marches to its own beat, a weirdo vision directed by Nicholas Motyka. This isn’t your average meal — for starters, the dinner is placed in a dark void under a spotlight. Quotidian chit chat is replaced with a series of flamboyant recitations, as in: “Eat those dogs / And call up those numb numbers.” Across the table from the blabbering father are his daughter and her partner, who largely sit in silence, until they’re forced to react. Made as a part of the Visible Poetry Project, which tasks filmmakers to create visual interpretations of original and classic poems, Motyka’s film has no designs on clarifying the precise meaning of the poem (you can read it here about a third of the way down the page), but mirrors the spark of its language with uninhibited visuals and melodramatic characterizations. Motyka previously directed “Young Shadow,” which we featured last March.
Up Next in From the Archives
-
Fast and Loose
Playing a version of himself, director Whitmer (aka Whit) Thomas drifts through L.A., meeting up with a series of friends and alienating them in various ways. Both comedic and revealing, "Fast and Loose" is a casual hang but an incisive one. As a self-reflection of a particular sort of friend gro...
-
The Trial
A college student wakes up late and must stand trial as he heads to class. Joshua Gleiser directs “The Trial,” an absurdist snapshot coursing with lo-fi manic energy about a young man accused of being spoiled, undisciplined, egotistical and more. Upon waking up, he is reprimanded by an old-timey ...
-
Demi
Demi leaves her husband and wanders around San Diego to find herself in this low-key comedy directed by Nick Ehart. At a park, Demi (played by Mollie Merkel) meets a woman named Margaret (Blair Beeken), head of HR at Rite Aid, and they strike up a conversation. Before long, they’re chatting like ...
