Saturday short: I Love You So Hard - Ross Butter

I Love You So Hard captured audiences’ attention when it was screened at this year’s Clermont-Ferrand short film festival.
Director Ross Butter animated a story by Joel Veitch – a story ’about passion, romance, and bodily fluids’.

Joel, a young man with a scrotum-like chin, will go to just about any lengths to win Jacqui’s heart: he offers to carry out a brain transplant on her, after coming to the conclusion that with two brains, she will be twice as clever, and therefore twice as (questionably) happy. This kicks things off to a crescendo of romance and gore. The film plays on the discrepancy between the usual romantic imagery and the horror of Joel’s fantasies, and is more gorefest than romcom.

As Joel grows increasingly obsessed, the soundtrack (voice and music) becomes more and more nerve-racking. We cannot but stress the great performance of the narrator, scriptwriter Joel Veitch himself, who goes all out in this highly autobiographic part.

The film took eight months to make, using coloured pencils and a thousand sheets of paper (as explained in the interesting making of).

The result is gross, a mishmash of vomit, blood and scrotums (Butter is indeed obsessed with scrotums – as seen on his website). It is completely over the top, but very imaginative.

In a way, this film is like a teenager: sick, stupid and funny. Sharing the love at the link below:

Full film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t4ldWkqomk