The humans’ contact with new technology has been exploited so much in contemporary cinema focused rather on a dystopian vision that it is almost impossible to believe that some directors are approaching this subject with other intentions. In fact, there are also some fun and sarcastic cinematic experiments in which new technology becomes not a destructive, but a catalytical element that helps people overcome their emotional barriers in order to self-discover themselves. Well, this is, in fact, the mainstay of ‘This Jelly Doughnut Feeling‘, which, combining real footage with animation, proposes a refreshing and optimistic outlook on an everyday life scenario. Opting for a storyline that, despite its somewhat unfavourable premise, avoids the principles of extreme realism, director Sebastian Spangenberg orchestrates with the nonchalance of a professional a cinematic periplus through a fragment of the contemporary jungle, depicting the inner rebirth of a character who becomes a victim of the abuse of power that dominates the unpredictable kinetics of capitalist corporations. However, in spite of these sub-textual aspects, this short film is far from being a frontal militant critique brought to the current social disorder, being somewhat an extremely touching panorama, through its cynicism in itself, of a familiar typology any spectator can empathize with.
After she is fired for absurd reasons, Anna seems to lose her self-confidence. But her boyfriend, drawings and native sarcastic sense manage to fill her inner void so that she doesn’t slip into an extreme state of despair. However, the bitter taste of defeat torments Anna, who, being unable to truly verbalise her reactions while facing her repulsive ex-boss, feels that her whole life has been compromised. But everything seems to change the day her boyfriend makes a strange gift, a high-tech smart speaker…
Alert, cynical, colourful, balanced – it’s almost impossible not to think of these words when you watch Sebastian Spangenberg’s short film defying much of the generic typologies of cinema, placing it on the edge of science fiction, dramedy and experimental film. Not accidentally, beyond the narrative nucleus which is quite simplistic in appearance but extremely authentic through its stake, ‘This Jelly Doughnut Feeling’ impresses with a good mastery of shooting and montage techniques, outlining with a magnetic acidity a familiar and bizarre universe which at the same time is populated by odious antagonists and touching protagonists who are struggling to discover their true self.
For the inventiveness with which the director homogenizes in the same fictional universe the real footage with animation, but also for the discursive incisiveness of the characters that offer a refreshing and optimistic perspective on the failures of everyday life, ‘This Jelly Doughnut Feeling’ was awarded the 2nd Film of the Month distinction in the March 2019 edition of TMFF.
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