Dancer (2008) Online

A dark, powerful piece, this film deals with Asperger's Syndrome and how the world treats people with this social condition. In this case it's an adult male; a salesman with sons that ignore him and a wife who apparently just doesn't care, a boss who's hard and cruel, customers and co-workers that treat him badly. People with Asperger's often become obsessed with some thing or some realm that serves as an escape from how the world makes them feel. But in this case the main character is equally as awkward in the realm he becomes obsessed with, making for a sad, tragic story. As short films go, the directing and narrative skills are top-notch. And the camera work isn't bad either.

It's an unusual and interesting story with several sub-themes; intra-office tensions, dysfunctional family life, quiet brutality in the workplace, delusional fantasies, loneliness. It's shot nicely and much of the acting is strong and nuanced (kudos to the director). The film is very poetic in the way the story is told (kudos to the writer). In short films it is difficult to establish the characters and relations between them, but in this film it feels like we are up to speed with what is going on between the characters, and especially, what life is like for the main character. I hope to see a lot more from this filmmaker.

Dancer is about a guy who has Asbergers syndrome and decides to become a ballroom dancer, there you go. A tale squeezed into 20 or so short minutes. He struggles at work, says goodbye to his coworkers awkwardly making a weird face and then from what we understand in the proceeding sequences, lives his dream of ballroom dancing. Do we care yet? Maybe if his dream was something that had a little bit more risk, something worth fighting for, if he had more to lose, we would care. but the banality of the story and character is something one picks up on immediately. If the acting or directing we're better we still wouldn't have bought into the characters attained dream as a triumph because frankly We see this story played out in every student film project in the country. Character has flaw, but not enough of one to care, overcomes flaw with vaguely symbolic but ultimately banal activity/ritual. It's film 101 final project all over again. Dancer comes off as just that, only with a bigger budget made by someone who didn't go to film school.