If you have just finished watching Business, I know what you’re thinking. What the f*ck, right? If you haven’t, you best prepare yourself for some craziness which will hit your brain like a speed bomb brimming with absurdity and hilarity. Trying to make sense of Kati Skelton’s eight-minute surreal short is a futile exercise and my advice is to sit back and enjoy all the wonderful weirdness because it will be gone before you know it.

When sleazy older gentleman Jonathan meets a pleasant, slightly wide-eyed man also called Jonathan, a strange friendship is formed. Soon a business opportunity presents itself to the younger man, but is it as easy as it seems? Business is an offbeat (and at times seriously gross-out) comedy, with random wonders abound and plenty of belly laughs.

After seeing the short a few times, in preparation for my write-up, I was still somewhat confused about what the takeaway was. Perhaps Skelton was using humour to highlight the dark reality of large enterprises destroying the dignity of entrepreneurship and jamming the wheels of innovation? Or maybe it was about politicians and the government taking advantage of the people, turning them into oblivious slaves? I was hoping that the director would shed some light on this to help me understand her bold vision.

When we asked Skelton what inspired Business, she said “someone once told me a story about being on a boat with an older man who tried to make conversation with him by asking if he liked pasta”. When we asked her what she was looking to achieve with her film she said “I wanted to tell a story about someone with zero agency surviving violence and humiliation”.

So there you have it. I may not have got the answers I was hoping for, but ultimately that’s not the point here. Business should not be taken apart in an attempt to find some hidden meaning or a profound life lesson, it should be enjoyed for what it is – a brilliant production with some pretty striking visuals (the forever flowing champagne scene springs to mind), and a punchy sound design.

Skelton’s world – riddled with offbeat eccentricities and dysfunctional characters – creates the kind of weird, wonderful comedy which comes along all too rarely and which will leave you chuckling long after it’s finished.