What’s in a film? I could go for the low-hanging joke-fruit here and just spell the word F-I-L-M – but I was asking a real question. Is it the snappy editing? Is it the punctuating use of banjo? Expressing anger by abusing a wall? Funky walking montages? Well we had the opportunity to explore such age-old questions as we dragged ourselves away from knitting jumpers and bulking our toe muscles. On that fateful Monday night on October 6, the annual pagan ritual of 40 Hours of Film was held on the Burgmann lawns.

Grappling with the confusion of daylight saving, each ANU residence had to write, film and edit a 4-8 minute film from 8pm on Saturday to 1pm Monday. This meant that only the The sleep deprivation is really part of the masochistic devotion to the cult of Interhall Arts. The films produced by each of the residences were different and distinctive in their own ways.

But due to his failure to take appropriate notes, this reviewer will only provide bitchy comments about them.

We witnessed a lot of trippy/scary/whimsical walking sequences between Fenner and John’s, creepy would-be stalkers with Griffin and Bruce, The Sopranos ft. Kurt Coleman from Ursies, a lot of buildings injured in the making of Burgmann’s film, Violin from Unilodge and a poignant exploration of that cultural icon, Creepy Guitar Dude, from B&G.

Nobody can say I don’t give subpar film summaries.

Now, not to single out any particular college (in all honestly it was two, but it’s more fun to have a go at the southern end of Daley Road) – : if there’s one piece of advice to next year’s films, it’s that people need objects to hurl or kick when they’re losing their shit. When your protagonist is inevitably overcome with emotion, the actor should be provided with more than a mere “writhe, bitch” in direction. Give them a bin, give them an ex-boyfriend, or a cat for all I care. But do not – I repeat, do not! – give them only the options of holding their head in despair or breaking their foot on the wall. I know it’s not all that significant, I just needed to vent.

We may not have had the technological sophistication of Sharknado (or Sharknado 2: The Second One) or the witty one-liners such as, “I have seen a security hologram of him, [dramatic pause] killing younglings.” But we did have one thing: a killer MC. Now it well may be that this reviewer is a bit “jel” due to his own history with MC’ing (throwback to Interhall Public Speaking), but I can seize on my one highlight of the night – right at the end, we were dismissed with a heart-warming message. The kind to make anyone’s heart swoon for the beautiful man: “Thanks for coming, everybody. Don’t forget to use the bathrooms on the way out if you need to.” I think it’s suffice to say my heart is taken for eternity now.

Now I actually have to give you the results. It seems like a John’s victory would be enough to delegitimise the whole affair, but nonetheless, from first to eighth: John’s, Burgmann, Ursies and Unilodge, Bruce, Griffin, and Fenner. As we can see, the hunters become the hunted: Bruce spent little more than 11 days in third place on the Interhall Arts Rankings before John’s tore it from their grasp.

Suck it, Bruce.

 

Photography: Sheridan McElligott/Griffin Hall 40hrs of Film 2014