New Short Film Parable RISE Is Beyond Amazing
!!Warning — My superlatives fuse is completely blown. And I may trip all your fuses as well. So, yeah, Caveat Emptor. — Warning!!
Dude, this short film is completely and totally off the hook. I’ve been paying close attention to the short film scene (specifically the sci-fi sub-genre) for a couple years now. I’ve had fun conversations with writers, directors, actors… all of which I’ve really enjoyed. But I have never seen a short film like RISE before. Never.
The reason that this short film is so different is pretty obvious after you’ve seen it for yourself. The acting is truly A level actors. (Anton Yelchin and Rufus Sewell? Rufus Sewell starred in one of my favorite sci-fi movies of all time Dark City. And Anton Yelchin, well, Star Trek… blech, but he was also in the SMURFS! hahah.) Which is über rare for shorts.
And the special effects? Yeah, small shops are really pushing the envelope further and further, but this is no small shop effort. These effects are top quality kind of magic. Here, even in still version, these effects completely hold up:
But, what really excites me about RISE is simple enough. It is the story about the created, pitting itself up against the creator. The robots are waging war against the people that brought them to life. They are rising up and wagging a finger in the face of their god and saying, no more.
Which, is a very very thin analogy for what mankind is doing to their creator. We are rising up, and collectively wagging a finger in the face of God and we are telling Him, no more. And that is compelling storytelling. It is a narrative that allows humans to speak openly about things we only think about quietly behind close doors. And that is a story about how the created hates their creator. They feel that the creator is unjust, and incomprehensible. They feel like they’ve gotten the short end of a metaphysical stick that guarantees them to be locked in chains for eternity.
David Karlak is a genius when it comes to these existentially honest type shorts that push and pull you into this dialogue for and against God. The Candidate is another brilliant film that brings these discussions even into an even starker light.
And what is brilliant about that existential honesty is that we can call out that argument for what is – a lie. We see God in the light of a selfish creator. We are able to really view God as a truly mean spirited and spiteful traitor to our free will that we believe that he is. And that is not what He is. We have a failed view of the creator… and it’s only in these truly honest depictions of this battle we can possibly call a spade a spade. This is such a perfect analogue for what it is we humans feel about our creator that it isn’t even a metaphor anymore… it’s actually a parable.
It’s a parable about the chains we feel that we are in. It’s a parable about how we humans hating feeling obligated. It’s a parable about how desperately lost we all are without the love of the one that created us.
