The producers gave 26 global directors a letter of the alphabet and offered complete artistic freedom to make their shorts. The best clips are the simplest, which use a clear idea to create something haunting: Wheatley's Unearthed is a witty point-of-view shot that offers a fresh, gleefully nasty angle on the vampire genre. Grau's Ingrown is a grisly and disorienting scene of violence that adds a modern jolt to Psycho. Espinosa's Cycle is a haunting circular nightmare. And Gens' XXL is a freaky exploration of the tyranny of skinny fashion models.

Also notable because of their use of humour are Pisathanakun's Nuptials, in which a talking parrot kind of spoils a proposal, and Apocalypse, in which a wife's careful plan is interrupted by the end of the world. And then there are the gimmicky films: the trashy exploitation of Speed, a tenacious spider in Exterminate, the overpoweringly grotesque Removed and a messy samurai execution in Jidai-Geki. Meanwhile, two filmmakers use animation to gross us out with amusing toilet stories (the hand-drawn Klutz and the claymation Toilet), and two Americans make self-referential films that whinge about their letter assignments (Wingard's Quack is snappy, while Schnepp's WTF is insane).

Two shorts are so slight that they're almost not there (Gravity shows us a surfer's perspective, while Miscarriage is essentially over before it starts). Even more forgettable are the vague clips that make little sense, including the Belgian collage Orgasm and the swirl of prostitutes and kittens in Pressure. And there are a few that are completely bonkers, including an evil Nazi kitten in Hydro-Electric Diffusion and the sadistic, surreal Zetsemetsu.

But the ones that most viewers will never be able to forget are the apocalyptic lesbian flatulence romance Fart and the transgressive sex and gore contest in Libido. You get the feeling that this is what the producers had in mind when they came up with this experiment.

themes, language, violence, sexuality

24.Apr.13