Can you imagine living in a dreamscape where every experience and every word you read are unreal? Can you imagine going through life, failing to realize that you are dreaming? How can we draw the boundaries between reality and the oneiric world? As Descartes used to point out, the sensations that we experience during dream states and wakefulness are similar to each other; therefore they make us doubt. It may be that this philosopher devised a method to distinguish these two states but we cannot help but be hounded with this niggling question: what if? What if what we call wakefulness is actually a dream we’ll never awaken from?
There’s no point dwelling on these “what ifs” but if we didn’t then we’d lack imagination and creativity. Art, for instance, seeks no rational or logic, instead it throws you into an ocean of free and endless interpretations and where definitions wax and wane.
Cinema has the power to stir the audience’s emotions through the imagination. Films skirt the edges of dreams and insanity and as a result they become prodigious works of art. Time is of no importance in film, a story can last for a few minutes and rankle the emotions and thoughts of the most passive audience.
Insanity,, and dreams are some of the topics that can inspire a prodigious artistic result.
Below, you’ll find a list of 9 short films that are disturbing due to their nonsensical and mind-bending elements that challenge our imagination.
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9. Western Spaghetti (2008) by Javan Ivey
In this film everyday elements blend and are given new forms and meanings. A daily-life activity like cooking can be transformed into alchemy, with objects-ingredients acquiring unknown qualities.
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8. Metube: August Sings Carmen “Habanera” (2013) by Daniel Moshel
“L’amour est un oiseau rebelle.” With this famous lines taken from from Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen, this film takes us from the eeriest to the most absurd of settings.
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7. Danny Boy (2010) by Marek Skrobecki
Love can manifest itself in sinister and dark ways. This short-film features a grey, decadent society, where the need to belong is exposed in an honest way.
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6. Submarine Sandwich (2014) by Adam Pesapane
Just souvenirs and… delicious sport items!
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5. Game Over (2008) by Adam Pesapane
Video games come to life! And as it is customary in Adam Pespane’s films, food plays an essential role.
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4. Passer, passer (2013) by Louis Morton
The reality we live in has the main quality of being vexing by itself. From this point of view, we can perceive how awkward and farfetched are our daily routines. If we had the ability to analyze our behaviors from afar we would be baffled by our own lives. This animation by Louis Morton plunges us into that hectic and always hurried side of that insane world we inhabit, but haven’t been able to fully understand.
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3. Synesthesia (2009), Terri Timley
How much do we know about the objects that surround us everyday? Synesthesia shows us a world of fantasy where objects can manifest themselves in mischievous and odd ways. Timley attempts to connect objects with passions.
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2. Teddy Has An Operation (2013) by Ze Frank
Have you ever imagined something that could be so adorable and so gross at the same time? Well, this is the main achievement of Teddy Has An Operation. We witness cute Teddy undergo a quite peculiar surgery. You’ll be shocked when you find out what he has inside him.
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1. Surprise (2008) by Ben Dodd
Brief, concise, and brutal. This short-film only needs a few seconds to covey an unanticipated and violent story.
You can find each one of these short films on YouTube.
You may also like:
7 Indie Short Films That Prove Love Messes With Our Minds
Short Films That Made Of Eroticism And Seduction An Art Form
Translated by Andrea Valle Gracia
