“The Black Hole” (2008) should not be confused with the rather unfortunate Disney film “The Black Hole” (1979). The Disney flick featured irritating robots and over-acting. It took itself too seriously to be any fun. It’s dross.
This film is far from dross. It’s about a contemporary office worker confronting curiosity, greed, technology, industrialization and retributive justice. It dares to ask: “What happens when a primary portal pops open upon a piece of paper?” It answers its question without resorting to the contrived device of anthropomorphic robots with forced Southern accents.
This “The Black Hole” stars an Englishman who has also appeared in “Jeff’s Tiny Nipples” (2014), a slightly shorter film than this one at 2 minutes in length. Here, there are no actors besides Napoleon Ryan as the bleary-eyed office worker.
“The Black Hole” (2008)
Directors: Philip Sansom, Olly Williams
Writers: Philip Sansom, Olly Williams
Stars: Napoleon Ryan
The inherent challenges in reviewing a very, very, very short film
It’s a special challenge for a reviewer to avoid spoilers when reviewing a film that clocks in at under 3 minutes. Such is my challenge. “The Black Hole” is actually a spectacularly popular film. It achieves this with one character, a single setting, muted colors, no dialogue and a compelling premise.
Enter one unnamed, isolated, fatigued office worker who is a dead ringer for an undernourished Bob “Saul Goodman” Odenkirk. Said office worker toils under florescent lights at a copy machine. It’s a one-man assembly line; the coal mines of the 21st century. It’s the mechanical digitalization of manual labor plugged by a minimum wage vassal. It’s concentrated isolation. It’s meaninglessness. We’ve all been there. Copy … copy … copy …
Then, suddenly, technology throws our dullard a curve ball. Spitting from the outbox of the Xerox is something unorthodox, something odd, something new – a large empty dot on a page. A trick, perhaps? A playful pixel? A perky punctuation? Or, perhaps, a hole! A black hole. A big black dot on present-day papyrus. An opening. A gateway.
The black hole of office work
But this is not a hole to mystery. Nor a hole to rebirth. Nor a pathway to redemption.
It’s simply a hole to the material plane directly beneath it. So, for example, our office worker can paste the copier paper with the big black dot on it onto the glass of the candy machine and reach through to extract a candy bar. It’s a shortcut, not a transfiguration. It’s a not-very-powerful magic.
Still, it’s something moderately nouveau in the office-worker’s drudgery. It’s a particularly character-driven question: What will this weary-eyed duffer do with his magic key?
We can’t expect too much of him. After all, he’s overworked. He’s uninspired. The exertion of his photo copying has proved endlessly uninteresting. Yet here, perhaps, is an opportunity for novelty. Or even riches. Should he venture into his employer’s padlocked safe of stacked currency? Is there happiness there? Or at least release from his enslavement? I can’t suggest resolution to these questions without spoiling the film’s plot.
So is “The Black Hole” worth a view? Quite. You can afford to spare 2.8 minutes from your day. Indulge.