Rubber Johnny

Rubber Johnny is a 6 minute experimental film, comparable in style to that of a music video.  It's directed by Chris Cunningham and made in 2005.

The entire film is filmed in pitch black, the only lighting used is on the night-vision setting on the camera.  We can't distinguish what Johnny looks like, but he seems to have an unusually large sized head.  In the pre-title sequence, the person who's filming concernedly asks questions to make sure that Johhny's ok.  He asks Johnny if he wants an injection - Johnny aggressively declines.  The lights flicker and we can't establish what's going on because there's no clear light.  The titles 'Rubber Johnny' come up in the form of writing on a condom and reversed footage of someone pulling off a condom, there is a bursting sound as if the condom's split and we see the credits.

We see a chiwawa sipping from a bowl of water, all the while: fluorescent lighting turning on and off.  We then see Johnny sleeping in his wheelchair, he mutters "Aphex", the sound effect of this word makes it sound prolonged, like Johnny's speaking like a retard.  He begins spinning around in many different directions and shooting laser beams from his hands.  This makes us feel dizzy as the light keeps on flashing, but it feels exciting at the same time: it's like we're at a disco. The Aphex Twin track plays in the background; the music is electronic, the rhythm of the beat is irregular and matches the outlandish tone of the short film.  I think of this sequence as 'the disco sequence'.

At one point, Johnny's supposed father opens the door, the music calms down as Johnny calms down.  We can't make sense of what his father is saying either, but his last words seems to be "you great twat, you!".  As soon as he closes the door, Johnny gets down on the floor, sliding his face harshly against it; the sound of a disc being scratched to illustrate the impact of this scrape on the floor.  The sound effect denotes a track starting again.  The disco sequence restarts.  There is one disturbing part where Johnny's face looks like it has been smashed to pieces against the screen and the audience begins to believe that he is dead: he disappears and we only see the confused look of the chiwawa which is telling us a lot about what has happened.  It feels spooky until we hear and see the sound of the shooting, which we've come to associate with Johnny.  The blinking light, even though it's not consistent it is fast and gives us a clear view of what his body looks like.  The remix of the previous 'Aphex Twins' track we've heard comes on.  It had been edited to sound more sinister.  The father bursts in again.  Each time he bursts in he seems to exclaim "you great twat, you!".  This time however, there's a longer pause which intensifies the scene.  The credits pop up along with random visuals of a train going past.

As there's no dialogue and the visuals are limited in that it's only filmed in one location and the lighting is of poor quality - even for a short film, it is heavily reliant on music to narrate for us.  The film is abstract and experimental in style, the title of the film 'Rubber Johnny' means condom.  The experimental film is comparable to that of a music video because there's a consistent track running throughout the entire film and the music is in time with the visuals.

The audience doesn't take much away from it apart from feeling the need to watch it again to elaborate on the story.  Whilst the film doesn't have any morals or narrative in it, it leaves us going away feeling not to expect to highly of any film we see in the future.