By Ben Hooper.

Past and future collide in this French fantasy that occupies similar territory to Luc Besson’s Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec.

Paris, 1956. A physicist jumps forward in time almost 100 years in an attempt to escape the clutches of a suspicious organisation trying to steal the prototype time machine he and his father have developed.

Opening with a Tim Burtonesque credit sequence displaying a fascination with intricate clockwork, the rest of this short film also has the same penchant for classic cinema as the goth maestro. All the noir tropes are there – shady black cars stalking men in trench coats, shadows slinking through alleyways – but there’s a real sense of adventure too, akin to that of the Indiana Jones series.

Ending with the physicist’s arrival in 2037 – a new world torn between dingy deprivation and a digital glow – this short film was immediately something I wanted to see more of; a smart idea, elegantly executed.

Fingers crossed for a full-length feature.

Here it is to watch –

300 000 KILOMÈTRES / SECONDE – short film from Stéphane Réthoré on Vimeo.

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