Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet

The first half of a compilation in which seven directors each made a ten-minute film; the second half is Ten Minutes Older: The Cello. The common subject is time, produced by Nicolas McClintock. In Aki Kaurismäki's segment a man leaving prison has ten minutes: he has to persuade someone to marry him and get on a train to Siberia. Víctor Erice makes a near-silent piece set in the Spanish countryside during the war, built on blood seeping from an infant's navel. Werner Herzog takes up the Uru Eu Wau Wau, whom he describes as among the last peoples in the Amazon to be contacted. In Jim Jarmusch's segment Chloë Sevigny tries to rest for ten minutes in her trailer between takes, and the ten minutes are interrupted continuously. Wim Wenders follows a businessman trying to reach a hospital after unknowingly taking a hallucinogen, rendering the distortion through camera effects. Spike Lee takes on the American election of 2000; Chen Kaige takes on the demolition of Beijing's old neighbourhoods. What is always true of anthologies is true here: the parts are unequal. Kaurismäki and Erice are the most cited, and some segments leave the sense of not fitting into ten minutes. Valuable for a viewer curious about what these directors do in short form. For anyone wanting a whole, there is no whole here.