Next up was ATOM EGOYAN PRESENTS… at the Union, so after a decent hike I found myself speaking with the man himself… talked ta him ‘bout how much I loved SPEAKING PARTS and EXOTICA… he was flattered, an extremely friendly, generous man, who was excited and pleased at the reception his work had been receiving, I took my seat just before he kicked it all off… He introduced each of the four shorts as we watched them. Two were good, one was great, and one completely blew me away!
The first, A PORTRAIT OF ARSHILE, featured his then three year old son with a voice over from Atom explaining the reasoning and importance of his son’s same at only four minutes, this one was short and sweet. The second, OPEN HOUSE was one of his first shorts ever and was visually interesting and a good time. Concerning the sale of an old eccentric’s mansion to a young couple and his demands that the house must remain as is, furniture, pictures, dishes, and all must remain intact and the two must promise not to move anything. Again, interesting material but about to be dwarfed by the two knockouts to follow. SARABANDE was next, although clocking in at only twenty minutes, I’ve never been more floored within such a short amount of time. Using nonlinear structure, he deftly intertwined the lives of famous cellist, Yo-Yo Ma with that of a doctor, Lori Singer, a couple falling out of love, Don McKellar and Arsinee Khanjian, as well as one of the character’ s efforts to get away with health insurance fraud, absolutely mesmerizing tapestry driven by the incredible melodies from Yo-Yo as his life crossed paths with each of the others. A powerful story which was good, but Atom’s direction and editing made great. If possible, if available, I highly recommend discovering this gem for yourself… EN PASSANT was the final short and proved to be very entertaining, a comedy featuring a deaf man and his coping with communication through diagrams and street signs, as well as a semi klepto luggage checker at the airport who confiscated a tag from each bag, which she then placed next to the dead-on portraits that she sketched of the owners later each day completely and immaculately from memory. Very entertaining stuff. Very pleasing to the mind and the eye. Academy nominations aside, Egoyan is one of the truly undiscovered talents in the business today.
