Rob Munday
After more than a decade of screening films for Short of the Week, the sheer volume of shorts I’ve viewed can make it challenging to stumble upon something truly surprising. Yet, paradoxically, this is precisely what we, as curators, strive for – a film that is fresh, innovative, and unexpected. It’s these qualities that drew me to Iván Bustinduy’s Carga Animal (Animal Transport), a short film that toys with audience expectations to create a tense and impactful viewing experience that leaves a lasting impression.
Centred around a truck driver, Hernán, tasked with delivering a trio of animals, we’re about four-minutes into the short’s 19-minute duration when we start to get an indication that something isn’t quite right with his cargo. A film with little dialogue, from this point Bustinduy builds the tension through a patient edit, subtle sound design and an imposing performance from lead actor Héctor Bordoni. The reveal, around the six-minute mark, stands out as a strikingly simple yet profoundly unsettling moment. One you won’t be able to stop thinking about, long after the film is finished.
Héctor Bordoni stars as Hernán, a truck driver facing an unusual dilemma.
Inspired by an acquaintance employed by a company involved in animal transportation across Argentina, Bustinduy recalls how his friend, Matías Gryńczyk, shared with him the strange thought that occurred to him one day – “What would happen if in one of the cages I carry was a man?”. While Gryńczyk saw the potential for comedy in the premise, this idea sparked a moment of creative inspiration in the filmmaker and he decided to take it in a totally different direction, heading instead towards genre filmmaking.
It’s this genre element to Animal Transport that adds an extra layer of intrigue to the viewing experience. From the moment we discover this “problem” with the cargo, our familiarity with genre filmmaking prompts our imagination to conjure various wild predictions as to what’s in the cage. Yet, by leaving this puzzle unanswered, Bustinduy crafts a narrative that is even more unsettling and haunting. What if the cargo isn’t what we typically expect from genre tropes? What if it’s precisely what the brief glimpse hinted at? The uncertainty of the situation amplifies the terror, leaving viewers to ponder the chilling possibilities.
This open-ended quality to his short is exactly what Bustinduy hoped for, with the filmmaker explaining that with Animal Transport he was “never interested in conveying a specific line or message, but rather in putting the character and the viewer in front of a series of questions.”