Blue

Don McKellar has been in the Canadian film scene for some time now, but his work remains mostly unknown to the world. He’s best known as an actor, appearing in a variety of great films by Canada’s best: David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, and Bruce McDonald. He’s less known as a screenwriter, having co-penned the masterpiece Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould and its gorgeous follow-up, The Red Violin. And he’s even less known as a filmmaker, though his greatest movie, Last Night is one of the 90’s best films, an ensemble cast story about the end of the world that remains gripping and poetic all the way through its last frame.

All of that is to say, McKellar deserves your attention. So today we bring you this short, sweet, rarely-seen nugget, Blue, starring the great Cronenberg himself. Like almost all Canadian comedy, the humor here is underplayed and quiet- a sharp contrast from America’s own loud, over-the-top slapstick-leaning style that is usually more about grabbing attention than bout being legitimately funny. Blue, though, is- it’s intellectual humor with a wry punchline that takes a look at society’s awkward relationship to sex- a drive we all have, and a drive we seem to spend most of our time trying to pretend doesn’t exist.

Blue finds humor in that room’s elephant, and its star, Cronenberg, shows the world how good of an actor (a comedic actor) he actually is, playing a boss who is both obsessed with sex and completely ignorant of it at the same time. Having built an artistic career examining mankind’s deepest perversions and sexual obsessions himself, Cronenberg is, quite obviously, a perfect choice. So is his co-star, Tracy Wright, who was another staple of Canadian Cinema until pancreatic cancer took her in 2010. Wright, who was married to McKellar, is like Canada’s Illeana Douglas, and she holds her own against Cronenberg with her idiosyncratic grace and poise- no small feat.

Like all great short films, Blue makes a point succinctly and sharply, handing us an ironic ending we may or may not have seen coming. Either way, in an age where finding 2 hours free is harder and harder to do, Blue will give you something as satisfying with only a fraction of the time.