Slow Derek

Derek is an office worker with a nicely slow-paced job in a grey and immobile office. The news that the earth on which he does this, is constantly moving at a huge speed as it rotates and moves its way through space, is something he struggles to fully process in the context of his life on it.

I had heard positive things about this short film, and in a way it is one that is worth seeing for what it does, even if it could have been a bit more accessible in how it does it. Playing out without dialogue, the film's main body is the contrast between the big picture of the world and the small picture of one man in one office. As an idea I found it engaging, because it is fantastic in a way to remember that although our lives are pretty contained and focused, we are doing whatever is we are doing, on a massive rock which is moving through a massive universe at a massive speed – all while I get annoyed because someone wrote me a snippy email. The film tries to make this a visual thought, and we get the clash between Derek and this speed, while he also tries to capture this in his own experience. The problem I had though, was that the film mainly seemed to be working for me in a way that didn't involve the film itself – most of what I took from it or enjoyed about the content was that it made me think outside of what it was doing.

Focusing on the film itself, there is a deliberate silence to it, with more of a thematic approach which sees the static contrast with the movement in a way that makes the point. Technically this is very well done, and I appreciated the crafting and ambition in the stop- motion animation; particularly since moving a character within an environment is one thing, but in stop-motion it is more impressive to have everything giving the impression of rapid movement and chaos, since the creative process is the total opposite of this. So on this aspect, I did enjoy the film, and I did like the overall point it was putting out, but I wish it had done more with it, and been more accessible, because I did find that most of the things I enjoyed about the content were my own thoughts rather than what came from the film directly.