(2000)

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8/10
short, funny, and complete
darse9 December 2004
Abe doesn't feel like he's really an adult yet. He thinks it might be due to never having had a formal right of passage into manhood. He decides to devise his own ritual, involving three days of fasting and sleep deprivation, followed by a certain surgical procedure that will serve as a permanent indicator of his official graduation into adulthood...

This short is funny (quirky Canadian humour), and also succeeds in making the audience feel queasy. Most men will be squirming in their seat, even if they are laughing nervously on the outside. A friend (who isn't squeamish) joked that it was the most frightening horror film he'd ever seen!
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Clever short that deals with the gap between teenager and adulthood – (spoilers)
bob the moo26 April 2002
Warning: Spoilers
Abe doesn't feel like a man, although he has clearly reached the age where he should. He notices that other cultures have rituals that bring people into adulthood and decides to borrow elements from each. He decides to fast for 3 days, go without sleep and then get circumcised. A documentary crew follows his journey into adulthood.

Described as a horror movie by another review, this is far from being that (did the guy even watch the same film as me?). Instead the story follows a guy confused by his own lack of maturity. He, as many of us feel, doesn't know when he's supposed to go from child to adult – he doesn't feel like he's grown up or suddenly got older. This deals with the fact that modern society doesn't have any rituals etc to give us this hand over and that we have to deal with it ourselves.

However the film makes it's point that we rituals don't provide maturity or create adults – this comes with time and with actions as we change our thoughts and life to a more mature setting. Abe is almost a child in his excitement about his ritual and cannot see that it is affecting his relationship with his girlfriend (to name one). His fate after reaching adulthood tells us that he has acted like a child and his selfishness has lost him his relationship and only caused pain. The point being that there is no switch that suddenly flicks in our lives that makes us adults and makes us suddenly feel grownup or responsible. It is a difficult age – I'm 25 and don't feel much different from when I was 18, despite owning my own house, having a job and being married! The lesson of Abe's story is that we must deal with the transition ourselves – it happens gradually overtime, we can't force it to happen.

The film is short and witty, it is a little hard to watch maybe when he's getting cut (!) but it is in no way gory or a horror movie. Instead it is a intelligent comment on a stage of life that rarely gets tackled directly – when do my slacker years end and my adult years begin?

This is well worth a watch – don't let anyone put you off it by describing it incorrectly – watch it and take your own lessons from it.
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