Quantum Satori features a beautiful opening shot; static and majestic, which makes the subsequent cut to the harsh red apartment interior all the more compelling. Few shorts are bold enough to lead in with scenes defined by jump cuts and breaks in time as it tells its story.
The avant-garde editing in the Youniverse Cube is handled well too; pushing images and moments to abstraction and skewing the audience's perspective of reality is one of the great advantages of cinema over other mediums, but few short filmmakers approach it well.
The meta-commentary on acting and filmmaking is a bit less inspired; the act of filming, a director saying "cut" and then revealing the actors discussing the film in question is a cliché by now, and even as it fits the postmodernism discussion in Quantum Satori, it often comes across as a tired trope. Yet there's something endearing about the film's devotion to its experimental, off-kilter sensibilities, even if it feels as if it's simply using the ideas of "what is truth?" or "what is the nature of reality?" as backdrops for a surrealistic film rather than an interest in delving into the implications of them.
The avant-garde editing in the Youniverse Cube is handled well too; pushing images and moments to abstraction and skewing the audience's perspective of reality is one of the great advantages of cinema over other mediums, but few short filmmakers approach it well.
The meta-commentary on acting and filmmaking is a bit less inspired; the act of filming, a director saying "cut" and then revealing the actors discussing the film in question is a cliché by now, and even as it fits the postmodernism discussion in Quantum Satori, it often comes across as a tired trope. Yet there's something endearing about the film's devotion to its experimental, off-kilter sensibilities, even if it feels as if it's simply using the ideas of "what is truth?" or "what is the nature of reality?" as backdrops for a surrealistic film rather than an interest in delving into the implications of them.