Jan Soldat’s absurd short film depicts a finely edited and ridiculous portrait of Udo Kier’s on-screen deaths in his latest and entertaining short yet.
One of the best programs of the already exciting section of the Director’s Fortnight (where we discovered God’s Creatures by Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer for instance), are the two short film programs as they will showcase new, original, and exciting works from new and old filmmakers. This year, editor and filmmaker, Jan Soldat, brought his 8-minute experimental film, Staging Death, a compilation of all the on-screen deaths of the prolific actor and recognizable face, Udo Kier. This short film was an exercising on editing using the format to play on timing and feel.
Credited over hundred-plus films and television credits and dying on over fifty-plus on and off-screen deaths, Soldat researched and compiled only the on-screen deaths of Kier to show his ability in how the film industry’s use of death in multiple ways. Laughable, outrageous, and overall engaging, Soldat’s careful editing follows a certain theme in each series of deaths exploring absurdity and comedy. A range of deaths including cheap special effects, sudden proclamations before deaths, being blown up, shot, etc. Name the death, and it is likely that Kier has been a victim by it. It gets more ridiculous death after death, contrasting death with comedy, and that Kier is a true showman in any work he does.
The comedic timing of Soldat edits shows what editing can do as an art. Abruptly cutting during a screen, to a stone-face Kier about to die, giving the amount of time of dialogue Kier has before his death between sequences shows his experimental nature in montage. One also notices that the timeline of film that Kier’s career encompasses, immortalizes his career and maybe himself into film history itself. In a short and sweet 8 minutes, this film had to be the most fun I’ve had at this year’s festival due to its playfulness and serious approach to the short film format.
