hoverboards

Sometimes there’s a work of cinema that’s so compelling, entertaining, and satisfying that it begs to be watched over and over again. When that work of cinema is only 123 frames long, that re-watchability can be indulged ceaselessly.

The narrative arc of this story functions brilliantly both linearly and as an endless loop. Its exposition consists of a young woman on a hoverboard entering the frame, about to whiz by a suburban backyard pool. Immediately, we know disaster will beset her—the accident-prone hoverboard has become the “Chekhov’s gun” of 2016’s homemade media. It’s no surprise, really that she looses her balance. But when the board goes in the pool, there’s a climactic moment of suspense and even mystery—what makes her turn her head and looking pleadingly off-camera? Is a family member or lover encouraging her to grab the electronic device before its casing fills with chlorinated water? We suspect it’s already too late: the thing is dead. Why then, does she attempt to resolve the situation by sliding into the pool, clothes, shoes and all? Was there a smartphone in her pocket?

Perhaps she knew the hoverboard’s fate was already sealed, and decided that a world without precarious amplification of walking speeds wasn’t one she wished to remain in. The dénouement of the video is the oddly-satisfying visual of our tragicomic protagonist disappearing slowly, from head to toe, into the water. Again, we’re left with an empty patio. She has descended fully from this plane like Persephone to the underworld—only to return to the scene mere frames after her departure in her own GIF-loop-miracle of vernal resurrection.

This is a GIF masterpiece for the ages, and yet so specifically appropriate to the month immediately following Christmas 2015. Go, hoverboard girl, go forth and break the internet.