ARC is a short movie-come-music video by a young director called Christopher Louie and concerns the only slightly implausible love affair between a young man with Down's syndrome and a very beautiful young blonde.
Christopher manages to pack so much into his five-and-a-half minutes that the film feels like a trailer for some far more ambitious project. The man is seen falling in love, the woman seen eagerly reciprocating, and, as the affair progresses, inevitable eyebrows are all too cruelly raised.
Imagine a Hal Hartley film elegantly compressed into a few minutes. It is a tender and lovely piece of work perfectly offset by the lo-fi power-pop of Why?, whose song Gemini (Birthday Song) lends a perfect sense of love, longing and irony to a truly touching tale.
Shamefacedly, I have to admit that I had never heard of director Christopher Louie or the band Why? before today. But I shall be keeping a very keen lookout for them from now on.
