The Girl Chewing Gum
1976
Comedy

The Girl Chewing Gum
1976
Comedy
Plot summary
At Stamford Road in Dalston Junction of east London, the camera follows pedestrians, cars and birds while a narrator, who appears to be the director behind the camera, seems to instruct the objects.
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
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Funny if a little long for a one-joke short but the intelligent comment behind it more than carries it the rest of the way
humorous and mysterious short that questions the nature of cinema
For a majority of its run time, 'The Girl Chewing Gum' is rather light, funny fun w/some interesting, possibly thought provoking undertones, but by the end it has, in my opinion, become something bizarrely darker than that. The main concept of the film is that its narrator is "directing" every car, character, etc. we see in this single documentary shot of daily life on a street in London, making it seem that every little thing in the shot is planned, despite the case being clearly to the contrary. It gets a little tedious after a few minutes, but eventually becomes more engaging in its latter part when it lets the cryptic overshadow the comic as we are made to question the narrator and some of his more unfocused and simply strange comments. Suddenly the camera is carrying off, and to me a feeling of darkness creeps under the final image's seemingly simplistic ground.