It's difficult to critique this short given the inconsistency between plot and production value. The filming is well done, the staging such that the short can be done in one room without the viewer getting the feeling something is being left out. Atmosphere, lighting, sound, everything nicely put together, with the possible exception of initial character entry through what looks like blankets tacked up overhead --something not very believable as a doorway to a bar, even an outlandish one.
Other than the staging, the plot line is "too" --too much, too little, too silly, too left up in the air, too freaky, too inexplicable, too just about any descriptive term that might come to mind. In essence, a man most people might describe as ordinary or normal walks into an ill-lighted bar and (while trying to phone his wife to pick him up) interacts with the only two people in the place, the bartender and his friend. The bartender, wearing badly done drag and speaking with an Irish accent while smoking and drinking with Normal Guy, tells the story of his decision to come to the States --a tale of parental child molestation containing so many repetitions of the phrase "put his big fat c*** in my mouth" that it becomes an unrealistically jarring note, annoyingly laughable like listening to a child deliberately repeating 'bad words' in an attempt to get a rise out of the adults in the room. The bartender's friend, a silent woman wearing a painted mask completely concealing her face, eventually touches Normal Guy's hand and poofs him into a bizarre scene (only in his mind) in which, now maskless, she climbs and crawls all over him in a sickly sexually suggestive manner while drawing a butcher knife across his throat from all sorts of angles and blithers about how she could have killed him but didn't. The effect is the same sort of "Oh, come ON!" impression given by the way the bartender tells his story --unrealistically jarring as if done simply to get a rise out of someone, rather than unrealistic in a way to raise the hair on your nape.
The semi-plot might have worked as a chapter in some kind of serial story, but as a standalone it's pretty weak. Given the good production values, and the impression that this is an early piece in the writer/producer's repertoire future efforts may be much better if the urge to go over the top with bizarreness changes.
Oh, yes...the title is the name of the drink the bartender makes for Normal Guy. Parallax being the apparent change in location of an object caused by shifting perspective and Parallel ... well, you might want to look up the original Twilight Zone episode of that name, though I'm not sure that's what the writer here had in mind...and just think about that one for awhile. The title may be the best part of this short.
Other than the staging, the plot line is "too" --too much, too little, too silly, too left up in the air, too freaky, too inexplicable, too just about any descriptive term that might come to mind. In essence, a man most people might describe as ordinary or normal walks into an ill-lighted bar and (while trying to phone his wife to pick him up) interacts with the only two people in the place, the bartender and his friend. The bartender, wearing badly done drag and speaking with an Irish accent while smoking and drinking with Normal Guy, tells the story of his decision to come to the States --a tale of parental child molestation containing so many repetitions of the phrase "put his big fat c*** in my mouth" that it becomes an unrealistically jarring note, annoyingly laughable like listening to a child deliberately repeating 'bad words' in an attempt to get a rise out of the adults in the room. The bartender's friend, a silent woman wearing a painted mask completely concealing her face, eventually touches Normal Guy's hand and poofs him into a bizarre scene (only in his mind) in which, now maskless, she climbs and crawls all over him in a sickly sexually suggestive manner while drawing a butcher knife across his throat from all sorts of angles and blithers about how she could have killed him but didn't. The effect is the same sort of "Oh, come ON!" impression given by the way the bartender tells his story --unrealistically jarring as if done simply to get a rise out of someone, rather than unrealistic in a way to raise the hair on your nape.
The semi-plot might have worked as a chapter in some kind of serial story, but as a standalone it's pretty weak. Given the good production values, and the impression that this is an early piece in the writer/producer's repertoire future efforts may be much better if the urge to go over the top with bizarreness changes.
Oh, yes...the title is the name of the drink the bartender makes for Normal Guy. Parallax being the apparent change in location of an object caused by shifting perspective and Parallel ... well, you might want to look up the original Twilight Zone episode of that name, though I'm not sure that's what the writer here had in mind...and just think about that one for awhile. The title may be the best part of this short.