Super Cut Free Way [Vasco Diogo, Portugal, 2018]

Super Cut Free Way is an experimental silent film full of increasingly surreal imagery. Director Vasco Diogo shot the film on an iPhone 5c, an impressive achievement that shows off just how much filmmaking potential modern smartphones have, which is doubly exciting due to this being technology almost all aspiring filmmakers have access to.

The imagery itself starts relatively mundane with footage of train journeys and gradually becomes more and more surreal, even bordering on psychedelic at times with swirling colours and shapes. There is no traditional narrative to speak of, but this progression in the imagery does create a sense of a journey or an odyssey of sorts.

The film is devoid of any music or sound effects, being completely silent at all times. This silence helps to focus the audience; with one of the senses we typically use to absorb film no longer needed, our remaining sense becomes sharper allowing us to truly take in the imagery and consider what each image means.

Super Cut Free Way is an interesting piece. It is one of the few films you can convincingly argue is entirely the work of an auteur, Vasco Diogo being responsible for all of it. And Diogo is entirely focused on the visual side of film as a medium and what can be accomplished visually with even the most commonplace of today’s technology, a fascinating and tantalising theme for any fan of cinema.

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‘Super Cut Free Way’ was a film in consideration for Short Focus Film Festival 2019.