Réél (2024)
Directed & Written by Rodrigue Huart
Starring Emma Gautier & Dorothée Quiquempois

Thriller

★★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)

The short film Réél, from director-writer Rodrigue Huart (whose Transylvanie was a Fantasia favourite last year), begins in portrait mode, as we figure out that a couple farm girls in 19th-century rural France have come upon a smartphone sitting in the field where they’re working. The two girls are fascinated by their discovery and start to indulge in the strange magic of the device. The device quickly drives a wedge between the girls when they each want to be the one to hold and use the strange thing. Then the pair devolve into pure madness in a struggle over who gets to have the device.

Huart’s short is a wonderful piece of work that doesn’t wear out its welcome and effortlessly gets across its themes without needing to be saturated with dialogue. Réél is a quick, clever smack in the mouth that goes back into the 19th century to help portray the madness that technology such as smartphones inspires in regular, everyday people. The farm girls’ curiosity over the smartphone is fantastic, as they wonder what it is (“Is it a mirror?”), inspect it (“There is light inside“), and even consider it could be bad (“It might be dangerous!”). But the greatest moment of the film is its climax, after the girls start to violently fight for ownership of the phone. One girl is triumphant and proceeds to flee, covered in blood, into a field, though not after thumping the phone with her hand and cutting in-media-res to her run through the field, accompanied by music, just like a young person today making a TikTok or an Instagram reel. The unhinged madness of Réél beams through to the very end with the girl laughing and tumbling into the grass like a 21st-century content creator at the end of a take. Absolutely brilliant.

---

Hunter Loading (2024)
Directed by Sasa Numic
Screenplay by Numic & Liska Ostojic
Starring Max Reed III, Eden Shea Beck, & Nick Chapman.

Action / Drama / Horror

★★★1/2 (out of ★★★★★)

Sasa Numic’s Hunter Loading—also immersed in portrait mode like Huart’s Réél—depicts loudmouthed Hunter (Max Reed III) gearing up to welcome his army buddy Justin (Nick Chapman) home on the Fourth of July by not just throwing a party, but also revealing that Justin’s girlfriend Anna Lee (Eden Shea Beck) cheated on him with another guy. And it’s all going to be livestreamed! A plan this perfect couldn’t go wrong, could it?

The “fireworks” that Hunter plans in Hunter Loading don’t end up like he expects after all hell breaks loose following his revelation of Anna Lee’s infidelity. A final shot showing the actual July 4th fireworks overhead is a sinister moment because of how it comes about, and Hunter sickeningly gets his wish for a fireworks show, albeit not the one he intended. It would’ve been great if Hunter Loading was maybe a few minutes longer, if only to explore themes concerning masculinity, the military, PTSD, and guns. Still, Numic’s short is a fast-paced story that doesn’t worry too much about anything other than the gun-related horror intended to be on display. Despite no extra time, the film manages to make a strong, harrowing point about how military violence exported overseas always manages to make its way back home onto American soil somehow.