Directed by: Ida Lasic
Distributed by: TBA
Written by Alexander Reams
“A father takes his own because you wouldn’t be there without him.”
I don’t mind surreal, in fact, I love it. The works of David Lynch, Richard Kelly, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Charlie Kaufman have helped me become the modern cinephile I am today, and they all walk the fine line between surrealism with a purpose, and losing control of the animal they’ve created and letting it run wild. Ida Lasic’s latest short “Dad Tax” is the closest I’ve seen a surrealist film come to crossing the line without ever actually crossing it. With just 176 seconds, Lasic goes through the entirety of a parent-child relationship. What plagues Lasic’s film is the time constraint, putting an entire life within the 3-minute runtime forces the story into a corner, but it still surprisingly packs an emotional punch more than most feature-length films. The animation is very reminiscent of the painting that Park’s son does in “Parasite”, very strangely shaped environments and characters, to purposefully set us at a level of uneasiness in the strange environment that Lasic created. Even with the short runtime, I still felt a semblance of emotional depth and care behind the film and created some hauntingly beautiful images I won’t soon forget.
The short film “Dad Tax” was screened as part of the 2022 edition of the Slamdance Film Festival.
You can connect with Alexander on his social media profiles: Instagram, Letterboxd, and Twitter. Or see more of his work on his website.
