UNITED

At first glance, United seems to be your average, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, tale of love— but better look again, because you’ll soon see that something extraordinary is happening in a flash of a leg, and a blink of an eye.

Jesse Schoem’s little masterpiece about love begins in a dance studio. There, we observe many sexy dancers, strutting their stuff and teasing their chosen ones to seductive distraction. That is, all but two lost souls, who don’t quite fit in with their elegant counterparts. Sadly, these two are a little bit clutzy, and a little too square— and to make matters worse, they dress the part.

So not surprisingly, he with the tan pants and dull looking sneaks, is very attracted by bashful she, in her lace-seamed tights and red boy high tops.
After all, both of them are lonely, and no one else can be bothered to so much as shake a leg at them. So what’s the big deal? You ask.

Plenty.

You see, we never once catch a glimmer of the couple’s conversation, nor do we catch a corner-of-the-eye glimpse of their faces. For that matter, we don’t really ever see anyone above the knees, and are pretty much left to our imaginations as to the rest.

Schoem’s little movie is difficult to classify because it’s so breathtakingly unique. It calls to mind the avant-garde shorts of the 1930s, if they were re-routed somehow, to the 21st Century. Set to a characteristic score with a mind all its own, United will get under your skin in a very big way. View it now, and you’ll see what I mean.

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