Because I’m slightly busy this week, I thought it would be a good opportunity to go through every single Taika Waititi short film. To start off, Two Cars, One Night.
Although this is Taika’s first publicly released directorial debut, that doesn’t mean it’s at all bad. In fact, he was nominated for an Oscar because of it. Two Cars, One Night does what Taika Waititi always does, in that it takes a very mundane situation, and finds the comedy in it. The three characters in the short, all children, give great performances. It’s clear that this serves as a precursor to Boy, not only in the fact that certain actors appear in both, but also in the story itself. It does a lot in 11 minutes. Doing this, shows how much can happen in an 11 minute period, that just doesn’t really matter in the long run, but is meaningful in the moment. It sounds hard to explain, but it makes sense when you watch it. Another interesting thing done is the way Waititi shows the passage of time, often with everything moving fast with the focal point of the scene staying in real time. This was a nice touch. My only complaint would be that it’s low budget really caused for things to have poor visual quality. I also would have preferred a bit more set up. But, truly, Two Cars One Night is a great short film that serves as the jumping point for the rest of his career. 8.0/10
Another Flipping Film Blog 