For some reason, I’ve lately been having a lot of trouble focusing on films. In the past, I’ve been able to simply sit down and become absorbed in whatever’s in front of me. These days, the conditions must be absolutely perfect - basically, I can only last in a movie theater. So each time I try to sit down at home and watch a DVD, I end up turning it off within half an hour. Not good for someone interning at a film company. So, I started on shorts.

I started watching a collection of shorts the other day, all taken from New Fest, all with the same running theme. A select few will be included on a compilation DVD that IndiePix will be releasing next year. Some were great, some absurd, some mediocre, some just bad, but the one that just blew me away was The Saddest Boy in the World. Many of the shorts, all dealing with homosexuality, focused on adult relationships, and the struggles between homosexual couples. This one went back to the root, childhood. In twenty minutes, we witness the vivid, humorous, highly disturbing childhood of Timothy Higgins.

The film opens with a life-sized doll house, bright green and detailed with children’s toys. A skinny boy wearing a pointed party hat walks in slowly, stands on his small green chair, and puts a noose around his neck. He is Timothy Higgins, the Saddest Boy in the World. With a lisping, mournful voice, and vividly colored images, the boy takes us through his painful adolescence, from being picked last in gym class (even after the chubby boy in a wheelchair), to having his paper-mache bunny rabbit, which he spent two weeks constructing, destroyed at his own birthday party by the class bully. Timothy is different. He is a homosexual. He sees butterflies on Rorschach tests and shines coins for fun. And he presents each incident of his tragic life with an unflinching eye that is so matter-of-fact, so wise and yet innocent, that the story is both hilarious and moving (although more on the hilarious side). I don’t think I can praise this film enough, so I’ll just end by saying, see it. When it comes out on the compilation DVD, or if you can get your hands on it before then, take 20 minutes out of your day to see this brilliant childhood tragicomedy.