Five minutes on an alarm clock feels like five seconds. Five minutes of a film, on the other hand, feels like anything between ten minutes and ten hours. Neal Zero’s short film “Absolution” (2004) is five minutes long and though it doesn’t “last” forever, it successfully creates in moving pictures what it is like to have a memory that won’t go away. Part experimental, part narrative, “Absolution” combines black and white footage of a man and a woman, the same man agonizing over the thought of the same woman with clips of drawn, pinkish streaks that resemble yarn. The frequency that the images move from narrative to non-narrative increases as “Absolution” continues, and ends with a suggestion of the only way to get rid of unwanted memories. A mixture of industrial noise and static serves as musical score, strengthening the intensity of the man’s frustration. From what “Absolution” and his other shorts indicate, Neal Zero is a filmmaker of primal proportions. If you’ve never been able to express the way you feel about a situation or a person, get Zero to make a movie on it. It’ll speak louder than any of your words.
