Short film review 3 - The Fly

Where as the other two films I reviewed are very dramatic and serious, The Fly is a very dark comedy about a getaway driver waiting outside of a bank robbery who must get through 3 minute of waiting for his crew to return from the scene. The getaway driver is put to the test when a fly enters his car and what starts as waving the fly away turns into a scenario of absolute mayhem.

The film is sort of like a slap-stick silent film as it is without any actual dialogue besides the odd grunt or argh and you really get a sense of joy from watching this dark comedy. Director Olly Williams really goes the distance with just how far this character goes with his tantrum involving this fly. The film is a classic example of show not tell as it relies heavily on the action rather than the dialogue as there is no dialogue.

The film was so much more than just the physical performance, the shots used were very clever and almost told the story on its own. An example of this is the dolly shot of the bank door every time the character looks over, conveying how impatient the character is in this situation. There were shots taken from almost every possible angle to capture every action and every viewpoint of every scenario in the film.

Though limited, Olly Williams is very well known in the short film community with his first venture into film making ending up as arguably the most successful short film to date (The Black Hole) which has raked up over 19 million views on YouTube and is studied by film students on a global scale.

The meeting in this film is a very clever and very subtle as the meeting is between the character and the fly. I had never thought about the idea of the meeting being between a character and a subject such as a fly and is certainly a good idea for the future. I could also implement the element of show not tell in my writing by using a scene that does not require any dialogue and tells the story through physical actions.

https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2015/09/21/the-fly/