Short Film Review
Title: The Tragic Story Of Nling
By: intrepid Film Arts
Director & Writer: Jeffrey St. Jules
Principle Actors: Tom Barnett, John Neville, Steven McCarthy, Kate Campbell
Released: 2006
Length: 14 Minutes 

4 Stars

Reviewed By: Kindah Mardam Bey 

Merge together Life Of Pi, Lord Of The Flies, Nietzsche Philosophy and the novel Wicked (Gregory Macguire), and you somewhat have the gatherings of intent behind the short film Tragic Story Of Nling. After all, it was Nietzsche who pointed out in his indelible aphorism ‘that which does not kill us, makes us stronger.'

Nling is a walled city within the island of Capillia, where the islands inhabitants have decided, in a cruel turn of authoritarianism that it will dispense of all its waste in society to be confined within the walls of Nling. So unemployed, hobos, homeless, live in Nling and garbage from the Capillians is dispensed into Nling for the inhabitants to live on. If life didn't suck quite enough, they apply copious amounts of liquor to those people sequestered to Nling as a way to numb the pain of existence inside a capsulated dumping ground. One day the garbage stops. The liquor stops. The inhabitants of Nling start to die, one by one. 

We initially meet August (Tom Barnett) at the top of the film, looking wild-eyed and fraying at the seams, confessing to two counts of cannibalism. He is our guide on this story, with his companion Donkey (voiced by John Neville); a rather aristocratic animal that once taught August at University. Donkey is not animated, he is a man dressed in a donkey costume, like something from a wayward version of Disneyland; a dingy Pluto as a biped comes to mind.

August and Donkey decide to leave Nling and see what has happened on the outside. They are starved for alcohol and food, and somewhat human interaction. On their escape they discover a man who has been lodged into the wall of Nling known as a corporate criminal. He spends some time with Donkey and August, shows them his supply of alcohol and is the character who brings a questionable morality as a theme to the foreground.

Throughout this ordeal, Donkey and August talk about life, morality and faith; which is where much of the richness of texture of this film is found. The Tragic Story of Nling, shot in black and white, with just enough cardboard animation to make the short as visually disorientating as the subject matter. What I enjoyed most about The Tragic Story Of Nling, like any well-done philosophical subject matter turned surrealistic fiction, you can watch this film many times and from many different perspectives and angles and gain a new revelation about the film each time. Pluck a theme from thin air and see where it resides in The Tragic Story Of Nling, you will be surprised at how many times you can do so!

Director and writer Jeffrey St. Jules does a great job of making this a succinct and multi-layered story about morality that even Nietzsche would be pleased with.