The Big Picture (2000) – 3/5

A subjunctive mystery

„The Big Picture“ is a live action short from 2000, so this one will soon have its 25th anniversary and maybe it happened already depending on when you read this review of mine. It is a co-production between the United States of America and Australia, which is slightly surprising because the people who wrote and directed this are German, but maybe it has to do with where it was shot, who produced it and provided the money and also the cast, which is really not many people, just two if we ignore the ones seen on the screen there and the male from the two only has short screen time at the beginning of the film and afterwards it is all about the female protagonist, even if she has virtually no lines either there. I think she says a sentence or two at the very end. Anyway, the two people who made this are the Spierig brothers Michael and Peter and they have basically worked together during their entire career. This was their very first work, so the career began in the first year of the new millennium. Their most known work is probably still the film they made with Ethan Hawke almost 15 years after this one we got here, which means that said full feature film is now also almost a decade old. I kinda would have expected them to perhaps become even bigger after the Hawke movie, but then again they also have not been too prolific, not to say they have been inactive, in the last five years, but seems as if there is another project upcoming, so they are not retired and we will see how this goes.

But now back to this short film here from the year 2000: I liked the outcome overall as you can see from my rating without being extremely enthusiastic about it. Their aforementioned most known film had a great amount of mystery to it already and this certainly applies to this one here. We have a man ringing the bell of his female neighbor on a very rainy day and he asks her if she wants to eat spaghetti with him, but she rejects the invitation and says she is too tired and just wants to go to bed. Truth is apparently that she is not really too tired in fact and turns on her television afterwards. However, after going through a few channels, she all of a sudden sees herself in her own living room. I like the way they used a wine stain on the carpet to introduce this perspective and have her understand what she is watching and what time it is in what she is watching. After initial disbelief she is still curious enough to see what is going to happen next and does not turn off the television in this scenario that also could have been the basis of some horror movie or psycho thriller I assume. What she sees afterwards is basically the way her life would go if she had gone on a date with the neighbor and accepted his invitation, like how immediately after they would be making out, how she has two young children, how she gets married (I am not sure what came first), how her children act as teenagers and in the end there is also a sad moment when the apartment is empty and she has died and maybe her husband has died as well. But she still realizes this would have been a fulfilling life and she realizes she made a mistake when she rejected her husband, so she calls him and tells him she changed her mind and is ready to eat spaghetti with him. Happy ending alert then?

Well, the actual final shot when she leaves her house then is pretty sobering and bitter, but in a way it was no big surprise. It was too good to be true and no second chance would be given to her. So you could almost say the film she was watching was not heaven, but a work of the devil. Or if we think about it closely, she was watching what her life would have been if she had accepted the invitation right away. But she didn’t, so that chance was absolutely gone. But oh well, maybe it is a good thing for us viewers at home to accept invitations like the one she is presented with the first time we get them? There is a lot you could discuss or interpret when it comes to this film. I think it’s a bit sad that the two actors are not really working in films or series anymore from what it looks like in their bodies of work or at least not often. Maybe they have found other jobs, maybe early retirement, maybe on the stage. But it’s not too crucial. This film they (and the Spierig siblings) have left us here was worth watching and I liked it from the very beginning and the positive recommendation was never in doubt. If you think about the parallel universes, Spider-Verses, multiverses etc. Or whatever they are called, you have a lot of such content in the (Marvel) superhero movies, so it was nice to see a film like this where it meets the real world somehow you can say. And it couldn’t be any truer, just think about the gigantic amount that coincidence plays in our lives. In terms of the people we (do not) get in touch with and everything else. Makes you think. The Spierigs definitely had their mission accomplished and starting your career on a note as high as this short film is pretty admirable. So yeah, go see it. I remember it was not easy to find the film a few years ago, but now the filmmakers themselves (or at least a channel that has their name) have uploaded it on Youtube. I am sure you will not be disappointed if you give the film a chance. I am a bit shocked that not even 1,000 people have seen it in three years or so. It deserves better and surely went under the radar. At least the imdb rating is fairly high, honestly almost a bit too high, even if this goes against all the positive I mentioned earlier. That is all.