Who Killed Brown Owl? (2004)

Directed by: Christine Molloy, Joe Lawlor | 10 minutes | short movie

“Who Killed Brown Owl?” is the first part in the series ‘Civic Life’, seven short feature films by the Irish Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy. Also known as Desperate Optimists, this duo originally came from the theater world and only later switched to film. In the elaboration of their ideas, these Optimists betray an approach that is as idiosyncratic as it is stylish. The films usually consist of one continuous take, are populated by non-professional actors and often deal with the same theme: communities.

The atmospheric ‘Who Killed Brown Owl?’ is a great introduction to the work of Molloy and Lawlor. The film – without dialogue but with uninterrupted musical support – is a ten-minute tour through a sun-drenched park. Something seems wrong in that park, and the body lying in the middle of a path isn’t even the worst.

The viewer already suspects that something is wrong before the corpse appears. The music – the rainy ‘Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis’ by Vaughn Williams – always seems to announce something fatal and forms a melancholy contrast with the summer images. But there is also something wrong with those images. Not only are they presented in slow motion, which adds to the surreal atmosphere, but it is becoming increasingly clear that we are not looking at an ordinary spectacle. Instead of a park where visitors integrate and communicate, we see loose clubs here without any interaction and dynamics. Tableaux vivants from which very occasionally, in a well-considered choreography, a few escape.

This immediately brings the theme of ‘Civic Life’ around the corner. In ‘Who Killed Brown Owl?’ we see a community from which all sense of community has disappeared. A child who for a short time looks fascinated at the corpse, soon returns to a puppet show. The man sitting next to a cyclist who has crashed into another cyclist looks around in vain for help.

Like most “Civic Life” movies, it’s a shocking event (pregnancy, illness, death) that demonstrates the need for community spirit. But which is the most shocking: the corpse with the ax in the back, the baby that seems to have been left on the grass or the disinterest of the park visitors? All in all, ‘Who Killed Brown Owl?’ a cinematic treat, which also has something meaningful to say about modern man and his environment. He also proves that a film does not have to last an hour and a half to be a gem.