"The Most Beautiful Man in the World" is a British/French co-production from 2002, so this one had its 15th anniversary last year and the little spoken language it has is English. It is probably the biggest career success for writer and director Alicia Duffy as it got her some decent awards recognition and also got in at the BAFTAs. Sadly Duffy's career has not been going too strong anymore since the release of her first full feature movie and that is also already a few years ago. But now lets take a look at this short. It runs for under 6 minutes and that already includes a great deal of credits too. We witness a young girl inside the house and then outside in a corn field where she meets the title character, maybe experiences attraction, perhaps even sexuality, for the first time in her life and as children love superlatives, the title is no surprise and stands for how she would describe him. There may be more sublime, less superficial statements in this movie, but I'll leave it to you to experience these. I can only say that the film lives through individual beautiful shots more than through the plot or story, even if the latter isn't too shabby either. Anyway, finally let me say that even if I enjoyed this one more at first viewing, it is still a decent watch now many years later. I give it a thumbs-up and recommend checking it out. And I hope Duffy gets back to filmmaking as her talent here is undeniable at times.
4 Reviews
Needed More Story
Theo Robertson11 March 2014
A young girl lies on the living room floor . Feeling completely bored she leaves he house and goes in to the fields near by where she sees a man
And that is more or less the entire hub of the story . You do worry that this young child might be bumping in to a jogger with golden tracksuit white hair smoking a cigar and making yodelling sounds saying " Now then now then lucky lady , how's about that then ? " but it's not that type of short . There's no real ambiguity featuring any sort of danger . I notice the synopsis that comes with the short draws attention to the poetic nature of it and it's very fair to say Alicia Duffy has obviously been influenced by the Terence Malik school of film making featuring the beauty of nature . It contains a very beautiful scene here the camera is underwater but for those of us who enjoy narrative in film it is slightly disappointing and a bit empty as a story
And that is more or less the entire hub of the story . You do worry that this young child might be bumping in to a jogger with golden tracksuit white hair smoking a cigar and making yodelling sounds saying " Now then now then lucky lady , how's about that then ? " but it's not that type of short . There's no real ambiguity featuring any sort of danger . I notice the synopsis that comes with the short draws attention to the poetic nature of it and it's very fair to say Alicia Duffy has obviously been influenced by the Terence Malik school of film making featuring the beauty of nature . It contains a very beautiful scene here the camera is underwater but for those of us who enjoy narrative in film it is slightly disappointing and a bit empty as a story
Beautiful and it makes you think
daniel-89123 December 2005
I saw this short in a DVD collection of Award winning shorts but in my opinion this one stands out by far. I have never seen a story of this kind. It left me stunned, almost with my mouth open. Watching this short film made me change the way I think about children and to realize that kids feelings and experiences can be more complex than we care to think, or that movies generally depict.
The photography is beautiful, very poetic, you can see that a lot of care was taken into the cinematography, in fact there's very little dialog; almost everything is conveyed through image and action. It's not my intention to give too much away, I hope you can experience "The most beautiful man in the world" by yourself.
The reason I turned to IMDb was to see if Alicia Duffy (the Writer-Director) had made a full feature film that I could look for. It seems she hasn't made one yet, but I definitely think she should.
The photography is beautiful, very poetic, you can see that a lot of care was taken into the cinematography, in fact there's very little dialog; almost everything is conveyed through image and action. It's not my intention to give too much away, I hope you can experience "The most beautiful man in the world" by yourself.
The reason I turned to IMDb was to see if Alicia Duffy (the Writer-Director) had made a full feature film that I could look for. It seems she hasn't made one yet, but I definitely think she should.
Inspiring and unique
BeautyKilledTheBeastFilm8 November 2012
I'll make it short: This film gets taught at the MFA Film program at Columbia University in NYC, which alone might already mean a lot. I just hope the filmmakers know about the impact of their little film and that it is used as reference on teaching the art of short films.
When we discussed it in class we had mixed reactions. Some loved it and some hated it. For me it's probably the only perfect short film I've ever seen. Inspiring and unique. A film against prejudices, beautifully shot and edited. A must see that will probably be shown to film students even in the next few decades. There is a bad quality version on Youtube. Please don't watch this one and try to find a good copy on some DVD collection. You won't regret it.
When we discussed it in class we had mixed reactions. Some loved it and some hated it. For me it's probably the only perfect short film I've ever seen. Inspiring and unique. A film against prejudices, beautifully shot and edited. A must see that will probably be shown to film students even in the next few decades. There is a bad quality version on Youtube. Please don't watch this one and try to find a good copy on some DVD collection. You won't regret it.
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