"The Awakening" is an American 8-minute black-and-white live action movie from 1990, so this one will soon have its 30th anniversary. The writers are Nacho Cerdà and Ethan Jacobsen and these two also directed together with Francisco Stohr. All 3 of them also play minor parts in here. For Stohr it is almost the only career effort here, while for Jacobsen, it actually is the only, but Cerdà went on to have a big career afterwards as a filmmaker after this, his first filmmaking credit. It is the story of a young student who is in class, falls asleep and when he wakes up time seems to stand still actually around him. What is going on? My guesses are he was dreaming, he had died or it was something biblical even going on. Wait until the final scenes and you will find the solution and I was correct indeed (no surprise obviously), but I won't tell you with which of these theories. All in all, the execution was pretty good here I'd say and I enjoyed watching this one. I am not too familiar with Cerdà's other stuff, but I see some nice vision here and an uncompromising approach to difficult plots and premises. The execution was impressive at times and I think this is among the best the year has to offer in short films. I think I have seen some of his other stuff (Cerda's), 1 or 2 other short films only, but that did not impress me too much as this one here did. I highly recommend checking it out. The music and atmosphere are memorable too. Highly recommended and I am also glad they did not stretch this past the 10-minute mark. Very essential film at its core, very convincing and most big name directors (Scorsese etc.) can only dream of starting their careers with a rookie effort as excellent as this one we got here. Also the title is interesting as we understand that in the filmmakers' minds what happens to the protagonist in fact has him enter reality finally with everybody else still being stuck in fiction and the female approaching him in his situation makes it look as if there is no need to be sad or depressed, not as the character, not as a viewer, as this one here brings salvation and happiness to him. See it, you won't need subtitles either as there is no dialogue included here or at least none you need to understand to understand the film.

This is one of those strange little films that's actually better the longer you leave it if I had written this review i like the majority of people would have given this a 4 rather than a 7 and that 4 would have been based solely on the technical aspects of the short. Now a couple years after having seen it images from this film haunt me (and not in the way Aftermath does). This isn't so much a film as it is a series of beautiful fantastic images that occasionally make you question the basest of things. All in all a gem if you realize not to take it at face value or look at it simply for plot. One of Cerda's more approachable pieces of work and really a great spring board for anyone's career.

The Spanish horror director Nacho Cerdà recently just released his first long-feature with "The Abandoned", but until the time that film gathers a large fan-base and/or a cult-following, he's still mainly (in)famous for the three short films that he made during the 1990's. Especially "Aftermath" is a hugely controversial (but not necessarily brilliant) piece of European cult-horror, but it doesn't deserve half as much attention as the experimental and cleverly plotted debut "The Awakening". This short is extremely atmospheric, stylish and it features a modest twist-ending even though it's only 10 minutes long! A confused and mediocre student falls asleep during class, yet when he wakes up he appears to be stuck in a time paradox. The clocks have stopped, his fellow students and the teacher remain motionless in the same position and there's an awkward Egyptian drawing on the blackboard lurking at him. The denouement of this short may not be too innovating or difficult to predict, but it was nevertheless a beautifully presented. The black and white photography and deliberately messy editing makes it look like the film comes straight out of the late 1950's/ early 1960's, when surreal horror classics like "Carnival of Souls" and "Eyes without a Face" where scaring the hell out of inexperienced horror buffs. I'm not entirely sure if it was Cerdà's intention to bring homage to that type of film, but I'd like to think it was. Either way, although sadly too short and perhaps not entirely flawless, "The Awakening" at least was a hugely promising debut and undeniably a film with a lot more depth than "Aftermath".

A not-so-bright highschool student falls asleep in class after receiving a failing test grade. When he wakes up, all time has frozen-- except for him. All clocks are stopped, and everyone around him remains stuck in the position they were in when this event occurred. This clever little movie is superbly acted and directed, but it neglects to explain things required to know in order to fully appreciate it. Still, the film's whole creepy freeze-frame atmosphere was portrayed very effectively.