Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik, 2023)

After his applejack business goes under, Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) becomes a fur trapper - and gets on the wrong side of the local beaver community.

Released as part of the Terror-Fi film festival, Hundreds of Beavers is the kind of movie I used to crave.

Watching it felt like going home. This is the kind of movie that makes me want to create!

The presentation was probably the best I could have asked for. The cinema that showed the film played a Merrie Melody starring Bugs Bunny before the film, providing a tonal entree to the film.

It is a debt the film is not shy about flaunting, but the film’s chief success is avoiding feeling like a one trick pony.

It is also not trying to be a literal translation of a Warner Brothers cartoon - it evokes the surreal, hyper-kineticism and rubbery physicality, but in ways that feel indebted to cinema’s early days.

Literalism is the true enemy here - the film is deliberately heightened in its aesthetic, but the humour is not self-defeating.

The film benefits from the dead seriousness of lead performer Ryland Brickson Cole Tews and the filmmakers.

Special mention should be given to the score, by Chris Ryan - he appears to have taken the right lessons from Elmer Bernstein's work for Airplane!, by underscoring the emotion of the melodramatic storyline, rather than trying to add to the farce.

This collective non-winking at the audience makes the film’s humour self-sustaining.

Despite the film’s obvious effects and limitations (there are multiple instances where the costumed performers trip or stumble into each other), there is no sense that the film is making fun of itself.

A gem.

If you enjoy something I wrote, and want to support my writing, here’s a link for tips!