Short film: Upir

Director: Patrick Lenahan

Release date: 2003

Contains spoilers

Upir is just over eight minutes long and is dialogue free. The film seems overexposed and the sound is scratchy giving it an older feel than it actually is and (I suspect) this was deliberate.

the clientele

It starts with a man (Jan Hrubec) delivering bundles of newspapers. When he gets to a bar he stops and takes a seat. The barmaid (Sanela Radovičova) takes three shot glasses of red wine to some strung out looking patrons. When she returns from the bar he points to the bottle, ordering the same. She glances to the table and the leader of the men nods, so she pours him a shot.

Sanela Radovičova as the barmaid

He downs it but very quickly runs to a bin and throws up. Whilst he cleans up after himself the barmaid takes cards to the table, passing the three men invites to an exclusive night. She checks the bin where the man has been sick and he steals an invite… Because nothing is going to go wrong with that, is it?

Jan Hrubec as the man

As often happens with shorts, it is a very simple story – little characterisation and so we imprint our stereotyped thoughts on the characters’ motivations and actions. In many respects this works because of it, a broad brush painting an impression and we fill in the blanks.

At the time of writing the article there is no IMDb page.