Slimtime

Slimtime is a short film created by four artists at Supinfocom Arles about a man who tours a peculiar weight loss center while his wife is undergoing treatment. Two main characters, a modern slimming center staging and a tribute to director Jacques Tati are the main elements of this short.

No strong conflicts are present in the film, which unfolds as a tour through the slimming center, with two main narrative lines present (those of the two main characters). The short uses various traits from Tati’s style, including wide shots populated by a multitude of characters and actions (with barely any closeups), plenty of visual gags, stylized choreographies, an amusing look at modern life and its rituals, an emphasis on sound design, including the use of acousmatic sound (i.e. sound that is diegetic but whose source cannot be seen or is difficult to identify), unintelligible dialogs, sound that is slightly out of sync, footsteps whose volume may not be the expected one according to the character’s distance to the camera, etc.

A lot of work has also been dedicated to character and environment design. The film’s highly stylized aesthetic was influenced by 60s and 70s designs, 2001, Tati’s Playtime and the futuristic fashion designer André Courrèges. The man character is based on Tati’s Monsieur Hulot.

Slimtime does not feature a traditional narrative and due to this it may be enjoyed mostly by filmmakers and cinephiles.