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DIRECTED BY: Alastair Siddons
FEATURING: Lyndsey Marshal, John Macmillan, Morgana Robinson, Anastasia Hille
PLOT: Hailey, the lead presenter for a shopping network, is forbidden from suspending her performance on a set where it’s always still morning.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Hailey’s journey to the end of the film is by turns comical, confusing, and surreal, culminating in a quick-but-profound moment of “hmm.”
COMMENTS: Judging from the Kafka dreams I suffered after watching this, I’ll advertise that angle first. An eager makeup artist preps protagonist Hailey for broadcast, interrupted by odd exchanges with an unseen Dave who runs hot and cold: snippy one moment, flattering in the next. “Forever Bread,” the invention of a gruff fellow in military-style fatigues, is among the never-fully-explained items for sale on 4QTV (quality, quantity, quintity, and never any Q’s), and we learn of Hailey’s aversion to bread mold and of her son, whose name she can’t quite remember. Derek—a regular caller, it seems telephones and goes on to confess his fear of dying (not unreasonably for a nonagenarian). Quick break, and on to the next item.
Alastair Siddons skewers one of television’s more ridiculous and unsettling genres, home shopping programs, through a ridiculous and unsettling little film. Up the Catalogue never goes anywhere; first Hailey’s is unable to leave the production set, then the building, and the finale is an extended pursuit down a repeated cycle of stairwell. Her boss, Dave, is the hellish counterpart of a Chris Morris TV producer, dangling the promise of implied freedom in front of Hailey only if she agrees to the terms of the rent-to-marry companion owl, Maureen, who used to be the network’s star hamster.
Up the Catalogue left me with a feeling of “Whelp, that just happened”, followed thereafter by a none-too-restful bit of sleep. The film cruises along the comedy-cringe line in true British fashion, adding a hearty dose of cramped infinity-space as the story unfolds within an endless backstage labyrinth. By the end, I wanted out as much as Hailey did, and I was relieved that my visit to this world wrapped up in only a little over an hour. That said, I strangely enjoyed the distressing journey—a sentiment which leaves me as confused as the climax did.
Rolling again in Five-Four-Q-Two-Action!
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
![Up the Catalogue [DVD]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41mXh6buBAL._SL500_.jpg)
Play Fight! (dir. Katrina Larner; 8 min.)—There are countless gaps in my personal experience, and one reason I’m drawn to animated shorts is in order to fill those gaps. Herein, Katrina Larner explores the vagaries of ‘tween girl sleepovers, and the mental impact of homosexual preferences at that age. A 5th-wheel girl is dropped off for a night of party-playing, and so we observe a cavalcade of cacophonous color and craziness. A giant mother mother shoots a knife and fork from her eyes and pursues what she views as wayward behavior. But!, things wrap up well enough for our pentad of party people, ’cause it’s only a play fight.
blinks in mimi’s singing voice (dir. Natalie Xie; 6 min.)—Is this but an elaborate series of notebook doodles brought to life? Perhaps, but maybe not. I can’t say I understood just what this was or where it was going, but Natalie Xie kept my eyes occupied throughout as the image shifted from clusters of kitty faces to jumping jacks to desks, chairs, and birds. On its one-and-a-half second course across the screen, a green dot kept my rapt attention.
