Veleno

Poison.

When a poisonous snake slithers onto an Englishman's stomach in India, his associate and a doctor race to save him.

Poison is the last short movie that watched from the collection and I can say that it was a beautiful experience to watch the 4 episodes in the same day, I'd love to get more of these Wes style shorts that takes you right into a story with an interesting narration style and more interestingly the beautiful sets and directing.

I can't stop talking about Wes Anderson, so let's talk about Poison, it was unexpectedly thrilling and fun but I don't think it's his best story wise .

Poison is a short film filled with tension pretty much instantaneously, initially feeling like a fun piece of style over substance until its final moments in which it suddenly gets a lot darker with an ending designed to leave a lasting impression.

Fulfilling the promise of Henry Sugar, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel and Ben Kingsley all get a much welcome second go at playing in the world of Wes. With Cumberbatch mostly restricted to a bed Dev Patel becomes the standout, still perfect with his delivery and mannerisms.

Wes Anderson's direction is always flawless in its visual construction, the sets here remain gorgeous to look at but a lot smaller in scale and the best surprise here is Wes showing that his usual, heightened style actually works really well for crafting tension.

Netflix for the first time in a long time is finally releasing stuff that I actually like. These four shorts made by Wes Anderson are a small gem in the enormous pile of bad productions available on that streaming platform. The story of "Poison" is not very interesting per se but the narration style is engaging at times, keeping the audience on the verge. The characters are pretty forgettable in my opinion, the cast did not really manage to create any interesting peculiarity. I reckon that Wes is a bit too repetitive. I understand that his storytelling techniques are very specific, but I wish he could make some variations, adding a bit of novelty to this piece. I believe that in short stories such as this one, he should have left a bigger impact, or simply chose better novels to adapt to the small screen. My final mark is 6.

Woods gets home to find his friend Harry lying motionless in bed. He dare not move as there's a highly venomous snake lying on his stomach. After the shock has subsided, Woods calls a local doctor who brings with him the anti-venom. Now, how to move the snake?

Another of Wes Anderson's four-episode short story-series, all adaptations of Roald Dahl stories. The others in the series are The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Swan and The Rat Catcher.

Wes Anderson adapting a Roald Dahl story seems a perfect combination: the clever innocence of Dahl's writing, Anderson's whimsical, stylised direction. It's been done before, to great effect; 'Fantastic Mr Fox' (2009) was brilliant.

Poison is similar to the other three short films in the series in that it contains narration with the narrator talking in short, bullet-point-like sentences, an engaging story and some quirky backdrops and props. The backdrops are bit less of a factor here, due to this film being set almost entirely in one ___location.

The other three had a nasty habit of leaving you dangling at the end - setting you up with an engaging, seemingly set up for a powerful ending and then just fizzling out, sans punchline. This one seemed to be heading to buck the trend but, alas, it is more of the same. There is a half-theme around ungraciousness and racism at the end but it really isn't developed well enough to have an impact.

Interesting enough, just don't expect too much of the conclusion.

'Poison' (2023) is stressful. This simple set-up of a man trapped in bed because of a snake leaves the audience in frozen state of nerves. The dialogue (mostly narrative) is detailed and given with such an intensity you drift into the scene yourself.

The scenery takes place mostly in a bedroom with the interior and exterior part of the house being movable pieces much like a play would be. The environment is active like a character and adds to the anxious plot.

On the surface the plot is simple and could be as old as time, but its what's in-between the lines that tell a much larger story. Roald Dahl paints this in his original story, and Wes Anderson with conservative creative control further adds to the story with unacknowledged visual objects and scenery.

This film, like the other Anderson directed films in the "four-part" series are all lessons in story-telling. Each having their own in-between the lines story.

Watch all of them. But don't miss out on this one even if you think its just another short film.