All’s Quiet in Sparkle City (1971)

The short film is simple in execution, but the message is disturbing and thought-provoking. The film is filled with low-ground shots of cockroaches crawling around a house, interlaced with voiceovers of ads and commercials for various things. We start off seeing cockroaches as an enemy, a disgusting creature to exterminate. The voiceovers of some science fiction narrative allow the audience to draw such parallels. But then violence against them occurs. We hear news broadcasts of innocent casualties of war. It becomes clear how this becomes a protest. The audience is left wondering, viewing the graveyard of cockroach carcasses, if the fear of the unknown brings out the injustice in ourselves.- Omri Curnutte