Great Film overall

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

I just re-watched this great short film. And I have a new interpretation of it. I'll admit to being a bit of a Anders Thomas Jensen fanboy, as I love his humor.A year or two ago, I ran into the new term "virtue signaling". For the uninitiated: "Virtue signaling is the expression or promotion of viewpoints that are especially valued within a society, especially when this is done primarily to enhance the social standing of the speaker." This is often seen when a person labels and shames someone else for "wrongthink". Being racist, sexist, homophobic etc. Often for things that are completely innocent, or rather mild.I see the main character as virtue signaling. Already early on, he labels his friend a racist, because he doesn't want to drink Mexican beer. Thus attempting to shame his friend, and showing how virtuous he himself is. He continues in this vein, though with more reason, as he refuses cab-rides, because he finds the opinions of various cabdrivers objectionable. Thus he ends up traveling by foot, and fails to complete his original goal, of getting his vote cast, before polling closes. In an ironic twist, and perhaps a bit of karma, he himself gets labeled a racist, and physically assaulted. My possible interpretations are that people who are busy labeling and judging others, maybe should spend some time examining themselves.That being quick to judge people, and take offense, may well condemn people unfairly, for no reason, or for being verbally clumsy. And miss examining a persons actual opinions and intentions.In the end, the main character asks for the local beer brand, rather than the Mexican beer. Does that mean that he actually wanted the local beer all along, and he learned that pretending to like something else, to signal his virtue as tolerant and multicultural, really wasn't worthwhile?Or is it the more sinister interpretation, that he becomes jaded, gives up on his ideals, and tries to fit in?Virtue signaling as a concept may be new, but the underlying mechanism is age-old. Pretending to be something you are not, to gain status.To quote Tycho Brahe: "non haberi sed esse" A notion that can be found in many variations, and far back in time.

This short won the Academy Award for Live Action Short. There will be spoilers ahead:This short concerns a man named Peter, an aid worker for a relief organization who realizes that he's forgotten to vote on election night. This is after he chastises two friends in a bar over what he takes to be racist comments, because, in my view, he's an overly sensitive clod. With the polls closing in 20 minutes he races out to vote, hopping in a cab.The cab driver is absolutely and with no apologies a racist and his comments definitely offend Peter, who argues with the driver and then demands he stop the cab because he no longer wishes to stay and listen to those kinds of remarks-even though he's losing precious time.Peter then encounters a few other drivers, all of whom make remarks he deems (with some justice in most cases) as objectionable, one of them a spectacularly funny rant by a foreign driver about kebab being replaced by a sushi place and the Japanese! Mr. Sensitivity finally reaches the polling place and tries to get in but is told he's too late by a black poll worker. He pleads for her to let him come in and makes a remark that, had he heard someone else say it, he would have called them a racist, which is just what the poll worker says he is and he's accosted by a man who says something outrageous in challenging him on his behavior and then punches him.The short ends with Peter making his way back to the bar and sitting down with the two he called "racist" in the beginning.. I take the ending as an indication that he's been given food for thought and maybe he won't be quite so quick to judge in the future.This short is well worth tracking down. Most recommended.

I enjoyed Election Night the first time I saw it and laughed out loud at times. It is a film I recommend to people and that I have watched again. However, a sober re-viewing of this film made my laughter stick in my throat. It is a provocative piece, with a message that perhaps the filmmakers themselves did not intend, and for that reason I recommend viewing, but do not endorse the message in Election Night.An Aid Agency worker, Peter, leaves a bar to try and reach the polling station to vote. His castigation of his friend and the barman in the opening scene reveal his humanitarian, multicultural leanings. His condemnation of racists is clear and concise.What follows is his quest to vote in the election, and like all quest tales, the valiant hero faces a series of ever-more difficult challenges to achieve his goal. Utlimately, as befits a tale based on a protagonist out to accomplish a mission, the final test is to identify and overcome a weakness in his own character. For Peter, it is the revelation that he is just as capable of racist sentiments as the next man. And this is where the film starts to veer off-course. Peter is punished for his weakness by a punch in the nose, delivered by a character who reveals the complexity of attitudes to race by his confused comments. I do not doubt that the reasons for taking the narrative in this direction are to do with fulfilling the structural demands of cinematic storytelling, and are not the result of the filmmakers wish to make an anti-liberal statement.However, the effect is one and the same. Humbled, defeated, Peter returns to the bar and symbolically, through his apathetic lies and rejection of foreign beer, 'converts' to the other side. Sure, this pathetic wretch toasting his Danishness at the end is funny, but it means the end note of the film is, 'Don't try to be tolerant, it isn't worth it and the recipients don't appreciate it anyway.'I don't think this is reading too much into the film. The co-opting of Peter to the racist side at the end means the film endorses (I am sure unintentionally) the views of Peter's bar friend at the beginning - that attempting to understand and sympathize with other cultures and peoples just isn't worth the bother. This is a film well worth watching, especially in culture studies classes as a primer for discussion. But try to think, as you watch, who you are laughing with, and who you are laughing at. And at what point do you cross the line?

A man has forgotten to vote, 10 minutes before closing the polls, he takes a cab but The Taxi-driver turn him on with racist comments, he change to others cabs - but the same situation occurs.Humorous short movie, that indicate that intolerance is found at many levels.