Rob Munday
Taking a surreal situation and making it relatable by incorporating universal themes of greed & loss, LA-based filmmaker Alberto Roldán has turned the absurd premise of a doorknob producing blue pyramid into an utterly compelling and thought-provoking short that comments on consumer culture. Screening as part of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival Short Cuts programme and released online in Vice’s I’m Short, Not Stupid series, Everything & Everything & Everything is an attention-grabbing directorial debut from Roldán that stars acclaimed Director Shane Carruth in its lead role.
“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.” – Aldous Huxley
Although the synopsis might somewhat reveal too much of what is about to come in Roldan’s 15-minute film, the story that builds from such an unusual premise is what makes EEE such a distinct, captivating short. Somewhat of a slowburner, despite the appearance of the mysterious blue pyramid quite early on in proceedings, its really at the half way mark of EEE’s run-time where the narrative really steps up a gear. Spending its first half building the intrigue of the premise, its second half sees Roldán’s storyline (the director also wrote the film) emerge from its leisurely-paced, science-fiction-esque shell and transform into a fast-paced drama about materialism, empire building and fulfilment. Speaking to the director about the ingenuity of his storyline, the filmmaker revealed it was the uncomplicated nature of his plot that really appealed to him. “Just as an exercise, I decided to write the simplest thing I could think of”, says Roldán, “a single character, a single location, no dialogue. One thing happening at a time. And that’s basically the first five minutes of the short. Then I became intrigued by the idea of completely going away from that – how much dialogue, how much plot, how many characters could I cram into the next five minutes? And by that point, the structure was obvious: the final five minutes would be a draw-down – back to a single character, no dialogue.”
From a broader perspective, I’ve often used this quote from Aldous Huxley to explain what the story is about: “Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.” I think about that all the time – will I ever be satisfied with what I have? Even if what I have is the thing I thought I wanted more than anything else in the whole world? That’s the case for our main character. He basically gets everything he wants in the first half of the film, but he keeps asking for more and more and more.”
“Shane’s got an intelligence behind his eyes that’s captivating to watch on screen.”
Featuring one of independent cinema’s brightest stars, it’s hard not to talk about EEE without mentioning its lead-performer. Carruth has made a name for himself with lo-fi science-fiction features Primer and Upstream Color and its easy to see what attracted him to the lead role in this short. Similar in tone and style to his own productions, EEE has that feeling of a science-fiction/fantasy narrative deeply rooted in reality and Roldan is happy to admit that there are parts of this film that draw inspiration from Carruth’s work. Although, Roldán had envisioned Carruth taking the lead role when he wrote his narrative, getting the filmmaker onboard was more of a case of six degrees of separation. “My producer, Cate Smierciak, had gotten to know Johnny Marshall – the master sound designer behind Upstream Color – at a film festival” says Roldán “Without knowing this myself, I told her I wrote this script for Shane (I didn’t know him at all), and could she possibly find a way to get it to him. Johnny was the one who ended up connecting us with Shane, and then later did the sound design for the film! Shane’s got an intelligence behind his eyes that’s captivating to watch on screen, and because so much of the work his character does is silent – processing what’s around him – the audience is thinking along with him for a lot of the film.”
Having already finished his next screenplay MOTHERBEAR – “a character study about this impulsive, unstoppable teenage mother from El Salvador who plows through anything and everything to get American citizenship for her daughter” – Roldán is also developing a TV show with Susanna Fogel and Michael Garcia, that he describes as “a kind of political pressure cooker”. You can keep up to date with the work of Roldán and his production team at bureauofships.com