VIFF 2017: Misanthropic Crisis Management makes for a hard watch

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      For some reason, almost all the humans depicted in this shorts collection are deeply unpleasant. That might be survivable, but the depicters aren’t very impressive, either.

      Some efforts, like “Hunger”, a longish Mexican effort about wasted life, are so colourfully mounted, you can easily enjoy the misanthropy. But the dependence here on human nature’s worst impulses—bullying, deceit, institutional and individual cruelty, plus the reliably taboo incest—make this a tough sit, aesthetically and morally. I couldn’t make much sense of Britain’s “There Was a Man, a Girl, and a Rocket”, a satirical number about a kid missing her astronaut dad, but the title sure is nice.

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