Just Don't Think I'll Scream (2021)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Clip Art

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

In 2016, Frank Beauvais suffered a horrible breakup as well as the death of his father. He was living in a remote village outside of Paris, and lacked the funds to move back to the city. He plunged himself into an obsessive wave, watching 400 films over the course of several months. For his experimental documentary, Just Don't Think I'll Scream, Beauvais assembles clips from those films into a rhythmic flow both soothing and numbing, both intriguing and jarring. The clips consist of innocuous moments, close-ups of objects or places, or people with their backs to the camera; no movie stars are identifiable. I spent a little while trying to guess some of the films, which was futile. It's better to let the images flow over. On the soundtrack (which contains no music or sound effects), Beauvais narrates his tale, describing his emotional state, and his activities; he barely left the house and found himself under a mountain of collected books, LPs, CDs, and DVDs. He describes the effort of deciding to move out, and the steps it took to finally be able to do so. It's a brazen idea for a film, but the steady flow of images does somehow deepen the emotional feel of what it must have been like during Beauvais's struggle.