From Omeleto.
A woman is the center of attention.
METAL A-S is used with permission from Christian Cerezo. Learn more at https://christiancerezo.com.
Natalie is headed to her friend Chloe’s test film screening, texting on her malfunctioning phone as she waits for her ride. At the screening, she mingles with Chloe and her friends, who chat about a new butt-enhancement surgery where metal plates get inserted as implants. Little do they know that Natalie got the surgery herself.
After the screening, viewers are asked for their feedback by filling out a survey on their phone anonymously. Natalie disliked the film and filled out the survey. But when her identity is accidentally revealed via her phone’s malfunction — and her implants malfunction — she finds herself in the hot seat.
Directed and written by Christian Cerezo, this absurdist short comedy takes an awkward social situation and parlays it into the realm of the surreal and bizarre, amplifying how it feels to find yourself disagreeing with everyone around you — and to be found out about it. The idea of a surgery that gives someone a metal derriere is ridiculous, but it’s used here to create a situation that gets at how it feels to be unmasked and unable to leave: funny, horrifying and utterly humiliating.
Shot with a sturdy playfulness visually, the storytelling is brisk and easygoing at first, a lighthearted comedy setting up its situation and enough detail to pay off later. Underscored by an effervescent pop soundtrack, we seem to be in for an equally whimsical, playful ride, as Natalie heads to a friend’s film screening, texting on her phone all the while. And when she arrives at the screening, it has the look and feel of a busy social gathering, full of seemingly quirky chit-chat.
But when Natalie is subtly revealed to have had the bizarre surgery we heard about earlier, we enter into odder, more disquieting territory, though the film’s pacing and humor remain determinedly light and positive around Natalie. From here, a fascinating gap opens up between the lightness around Natalie and her inner discomfort and fear. And when she can’t simply leave, due to her mishaps with her surgery, she panics.
As Natalie is "unmasked" as the one critical voice at the screening, actor Jasmine Alimova adroitly conveys the growing anxiety and agitation at the gap between her inner opinions and the outer consensus around her — a frisson of tension that increases in intensity when she realizes she is stuck at the screening. Natalie panics, sending herself and the film into a comically operatic direction, heightening the surreal horror and humiliation she feels, not just for her difference in opinion but her own previously hidden vulnerabilities and vanities. It ends METAL A-S on a memorable note, getting at the layers of being an outsider, the aloneness of standing alone in your convictions when everyone else thinks differently — and being found out as the flawed, weird human being we all are, deep down.
