In case you were wondering if Ari Aster was always the insatiably weird and controversial director that he is now, having made 2018’s ‘Herreditary’ and 2019’s ‘Midsommar,’ wonder no more. Yes, he has.
Aster’s 2013 silent short film, ‘Munchausen,’ is described by VICE as “a Pixar-inspired silent short about a clingy mother (played by Bonnie Bedelia, John McClaine’s wife in Die Hard) who goes to a bunch of extreme lengths to keep her son from going off to college.”
‘Munchausen’ was an official selection at Fantastic Fest in 2013 and was released two years later through VICE Film in 2015. The film was crowdfunded in 2012, raising $16,175. The Kickstarter page describes the film as:
MUNCHAUSEN is a vibrant, wordless, Pixar-inspired montage (think the marriage sequence in UP, but live action) in which a devoted mother, unable to confront the heartbreak of her son leaving for college, delays his departure by making him sick. She accidentally goes too far, is helpless to reverse that which she set in motion, and is forced to face the unfathomable consequences of her decision. Again, think Pixar!
You can read the entire script for the short film here. You can watch the entire short film on Youtube as part of VICE’s series called VICE Shorts:
Watch more VICE Shorts here.
