Cashback

Cashback (2004) is an eighteen minute short. Do not confuse it with the feature of the same name: the director later expanded this into one, but this is the original, and it was nominated for an Oscar. Ben cannot sleep after a breakup and takes a night shift at a supermarket. Time refuses to pass. So he imagines stopping it altogether, walking the aisles and drawing the customers frozen in place. The idea is a good one. Insomnia and boredom become an aesthetic escape for an art student. The visual language is calm, the light is cold, and the supermarket looks like an actual supermarket rather than a set. One warning. When time stops, the customers he draws are nude. This is the most argued about element of the short. Some read it as an innocent conceit about art and looking. Others read it as romanticising the act of looking without consent. The second objection is a serious one. Eighteen minutes, one sitting. Good for: short film, British independent cinema, and visual experiments. Less good for: there is nudity, and the way the gaze is constructed may be uncomfortable. If you came looking for the feature, this is not it.