Berlin 2018: 100 Words on Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, and Guy Maddin's Accidence




Photo Credit: Six Shooter Records

By Thomas Puhr

Accidence (2018) immediately demands multiple viewings. Presented as a single shot that merges live action and unobtrusive animation, the short chronicles the goings-on of an array of apartment building tenants whose paths intertwine in unexpected and surreal ways. The stories on dollhouse-like display range from the banal (a man sleeping on his balcony), to the dramatic (a murder), to the bewildering (a man investigating shadows through a window). Maddin, Johnson, and Johnson merge the beginning and end (a clock in the central room proves key) so that the film, like a mesmerizing ambient album, could seemingly repeat itself into eternity.