Self-Assembly

It's hard to describe Self-Assembly... really. Based off of the 1 rather short comic strip (that I immediately looked up after viewing this short) you've probably never heard of, Self-Assembly shows the long haul of parents trying to raise an alien-like child they found in a self assembly cabinet which they recently bought. Without going into detail, the ending was sort-of abrupt, but, also, in a way more shocking that I could have anticipated. Going on the details side of thing, there is little-to-no dialog, or speech in this film, but, regardless the acting is well done. The film is also set entirely in black and white, and the first few seconds sort of set up the tone of the film, but, more on that later.

For such a bizarre concept, you'd expect it to not be pulled off as well. In that sense, you're almost completely wrong. The story is intriguing, and, while there certainly isn't much of it, whatever's left is interesting. However, as previously mentioned, I do feel this short film ended on a head-scratch-ER... not in an inception kind of way, but, more on the, "Well, that happened" sort of abrupt way. And, also, don't expect much character development in anybody but the monster, which goes over-board and does a spine breaking 360 jump- kick when all is said and done.

Now for my main issue with the film... it's humor. While some may laugh from time to time, for a film that dons it self as a dark comedy, it only really gets one part of that right. Yes, don't get me wrong, this film is dark, so much so to the point where I was asking myself if I would be okay to continue watching at points, however, as a comedy, it doesn't really hold up. The first few seconds of the film, while predictable, are about the only real laugh I had here, and I only mildly giggled. Instead of working with it's interesting concept to create a few gut-busters, it focuses more on gross out humor, which works if you like that sort of humor, but, in my personal opinion, it didn't really work for me here.

And now, onto the overall tone of the film. As I mentioned, the beginning sort of sets up the tone of this short... SORT OF. It's dark, fast, shocking, and quite predictable, a pattern I found throughout this short. Where it gets the tone right is the fact that it quite frankly gives us a taste at some dark humor to expect, but, where it gets it wrong is one fact: it had me expecting more. Instead, the tone goes from "HEY, I'm darkly funny", to, "HEY, I might be considered darkly comedic, but, I'm more on the dark side, less on the comedy". However, to end on a less bitter note, the direction is smooth, and was handled decently.

When all is said and done, Self-Assembly is good, but certainly not perfect. It ends quite abruptly, the only character really worth paying attention to is the alien-like-child, and some (like me) might find it not very humorous. But, for all those complaints, it has good acting, decent writing AND direction, disturbing scenes that were well executed, AND a good concept.

As a sort of warning, if you're a teacher that shows a class short films without previewing them, and doesn't let them see violent shorts, I would either not recommend you show your class this film at all, or, at least preview it first.