“Bergamot” directed by Hsu Chien

San Diego Short Film Festival

Genre: Horror / Suspense

Total Run Time 15:00

 

I am going to forego describing the story in “Bergamot” only because it contorts itself into something new every few minutes, while managing to tell a cohesive story that is as twisted as its characters. Describing it too much would give away what makes it interesting; describing it too little would be a disservice.

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This is almost exclusively a three-man job, with Marcio Rosario (Jorge), Gabriel Canella (Leo) and Victor Pinto (“Thug”) playing several levels of cat and mouse, and those archetypical roles reverse several times during the film’s short run time. There are four or five places when I thought to myself that “Bergamot” was not what I thought it was going to be, and Hsu seems to relish playing with the audience’s expectations in much the same way that the characters are playing with each other.

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It’s shot in gorgeous black and white (mostly black, but with everything important visible), with a camera that very rarely moves and only captures part of what’s happening at any given time. If the plot weren’t enough to keep you guessing, the cinematography almost forces you to make guesses. At one point, the stationary camera only captures the actors’ midriffs and you can’t judge what’s happening in the scene based on their facial expressions.

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This will easily be the shortest review of the entire festival. I may not be able to adequately describe “Bergamot”, but I can easily recommend it as a genre-bending, expectation-defying phenomenon.

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