Short Film: Maximall

Maximall from Axel Tillement

At its core, Maximall is yet another chase film, but its outrageous storyline and beautiful composition sets it head and shoulders above other shorts of the genre. The film centers on a young worker at a big box-store anchored strip mall. Evidently he is the last to leave that night and as he is starting up his scooter to go home he finds himself scarily, absurdly, targeted for destruction by sentient shopping carts. As ridiculous as the concept is, the Maximall team - Axel Tillement, Nawal Rahal, Hadrien Ledieu, and Axelle Cheriet - don't play it that way, and the final result is genuinely tense, as the relentlessness and overwhelming force of shopping carts induce zombie-esque levels of terror. This otherworldly force builds and builds towards the film’s beautifully surreal climax, producing a closing metaphor that is not labored in the least—our materialism produces an overwhelming amount of stuff that literally traps us.