Ballerina (David Lynch, 2007, USA)

Ballerina is a 12-minute short by director David Lynch. The film opens with a foggy image of the titular ballerina, against a background of eerie ambient music. We see the image of the dancer in motion through the veil of smoke. There seems to be a light flashing against her. The camera fades and we are further away from the dancer. This time her image is clearer, she is in a red dress, dancing in the spotlight. The blurry clouds fade in and out as the dance continues. The image fades in and out as the dance continues. Occasionally we are brought into more of a closeup, and sometimes the smoke entirely covers the image and we are left with the ballerina in silhouette. 

The film is reminiscent of Lynch's Inland Empire as well as his short film Absurda. While the atmospheric music is a pleasure to listen to, the repetitive nature of the film gets somewhat boring after a while. This would be more effective as background footage at some kind of event than an actual film. It has the feeling of more of an art installation than the usual short films we have seen from David Lynch. 

The highlight of this short is the sound design. It has echoes of the sound design that was in Inland Empire. The video footage itself is one of Lynch's early experiments with digital cinema. Lynch was an early adopter of digital, along with other directors like Michael Mann. His film Inland Empire was certainly one of the most ambitious early projects short entirely on digital. This short seems to be more explanation of the potential of the digital medium by Lynch. Still, the experimental nature of the short does not make it particularly interesting. This film is best left for Lynch completists only. 

3/10