As school’s been out for days already and there’s no-one to look after her, 10-year-old Annie roams alone through forest and meadow, leaving a trail of destruction in her path. But her confidence is severely shaken when she comes across a hole in the ground from whose depths a woman’s voice can be heard calling for help. As if guided by some magic power, she returns again and again to this place of mystery, first with sandwiches and walkie-talkies and later with a request.
Although she’s a proper little brat, the film takes an empathetic look at lonely rebel Annie. She may bellow defiantly “I’m not scared of nothing!” into the hole but is frightened nonetheless, full of questions which no adult seems able to answer. “How to become a better person?” is the title of the book her father is reading, a stock-car driver, goat farmer and yet still a big kid himself. “How do they know anyway?” asks Annie astounded.
The land that the Zellner brothers present us here is a run-down realm of the debilitated and the disturbed, their combination of hyperreal independent film motifs and fairy tale tropes generating something genuinely unique: disturbing, funny, brutal, offbeat and melancholy. (Hanna Keller)
Production: Zellner Bros., Austin
Screenplay: David Zellner
Camera: Nathan Zellner
Additional Camera: Clay Liford, Jim Eastburn, David Fitch
Cast: Sydney Aguirre, Susan Tyrrell, Nathan Zellner, David Zellner, David Wingo, Mary Cameron House, David House, Jack House, Charlie House
Format: HD, colour
Running time: 83 min
Language: English
Kid-Thing
David Zellner
USA 2012
