Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"Naran Ja" is an American 12.5-minute live action short film from 2012, so it has its 5th anniversary this year. Choreography is by Benjamin Millepied from Black Swan and the director is Alejandro González Iñárritu. Yep that's right it is from the man who won back-to-back directing Oscars recently and honestly nothing about this work would let you think of that. Early on I wondered what genre this may be, but I settled quickly for mystery. The flying orange fits in nicely with that assumption too. Wait what? Why is there a flying orange??? I guess we will never find out. It cannot be just for the title. Anyway, the longer this went, the more it really turned into a dance movie. The woman who seems to be the protagonist early on just turns into one of many and it becomes an ensemble performance, more about dancing than about acting. The most memorable thing here is probably the strong contrast between the colorful dresses and the bleak prairie where the entire thing takes place. The good thing about this one is that aspiring filmmakers can take a lesson here that you can do stuff like that and follow-up on it with Birdman and The Revenant. I have zero doubts that if any not so big-name filmmaker would have come up with it (and yes they could have), it never would have gotten any attention at all and instead been forgotten quickly. I give it a thumbs-down and suggest you skip it unless you are an AGI completionist. Watch something else instead.
