Indie darling Hal Hartley has slipped off the radar of late: 1997's Henry Fool left even his ardent fans cold, while his last feature, 2001's No Such Thing, never made it into cinemas. You can see why from this collection of shorts, which suggest the Amateur helmer has given up any hope of mainstream acceptance.
Things start promisingly with Opera No.1, a seven-minute curio in which a pair of rollerblading angels (Hartley regulars Parker Posey and Adrienne Shelly) clumsily engineer an earthbound romance. Alas, it's all downhill from here, from artily out-of-focus installation The Other Also to Kimono, a wordless vehicle for Hartley's Japanese wife Miho Nikaido. The compilation reaches its nadir with excerpts from Hal's stage play Soon, "a reflection on aspects of Christianity in America" that proves the offbeat intellect of Simple Men has been supplanted by arch, pretentious verbosity.
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