Céline Roustan
A woman parties a little too hard… We all know what that means. With smudged makeup, she embarks on an odyssey home, with the hope of finding food along the way. This situation will definitely trigger memories for many of us, or not… and might actually deter others from binge drinking. Unsatisfied with most depictions of drunkenness on screen, writer/director Daniel Chisholm crafted Don’t Puke, a hyperrealistic chronicle of such an endeavour, without the consequences of the hangover in the morning. Viewers are warned… it’s so effective that your stomach might turn a bit.
When Chisholm admitted that the inspiration for the film came from his years as a student, it came as no surprise to someone who can definitely relate. “Having such intimate knowledge of what it feels like to be smashed, I often felt a bit let down by the depictions of inebriation on screen,” he explained. Indeed, the visceral aspect of the experience is rarely captured in films; instead, it often feels like a depiction of someone simply being drunk. Instead, Chisholm builds his film around the staggering journey home from an alcohol-fuelled night out, with all its ups and downs, in a surprisingly immersive way without sacrificing the utter grotesqueness of the situation.
Working with DP Dillon Ritchie, sound designer Alexei Galar and composer Paul Child, Chisholm recreates the inebriated state of mind perfectly. Without overdoing it, they immerse us in a dizziness infused with nausea, much more effectively than the goggles they put on you in driving school to show you how alcohol impairs your senses. It’s not for the faint of heart, but they successfully manage to make the audience lose its footing alongside the film’s protagonist.
Janka Horakova stars as the drunken woman at the center of Don’t Puke
There is a narrative arc, though! The main character has to get home, and we follow her on that endeavor while rooting for her. Chisholm gently pokes fun at the situation through the score, or by sometimes taking us out of her perspective and allowing us to see what’s going on as an outsider. It almost feels like a welcome and cheeky, self-deprecating wink. He finds creative ways to give her journey home light twists and turns that make the film delightfully funny, while also making it all the more effective when it comes to inducing nausea.
With the main goal of Don’t Puke this hyperrealistic depiction, while lots of techniques were used to make the images turn, actress Janka Horakova really carries the short with her impressive performance. It’s not easy to play drunk, especially in a light situation like this one, without overdoing it. Yet she nails it effortlessly. She finds the right balance in her lack of physical balance: in the way she moves, her facial reactions and how she communicates the quest she is on, right up until the relief of finding food, home, water… or is it? The couch and, inevitably… the toilets!
Ahead of its online debut, Don’t Puke played in theaters at festivals including Aesthetica and the Palm Springs ShortFest, where the filmmakers were gracious enough to provide vomit bags for the audience. Chisholm is now working on the development of a near-future sci-fi feature, while simultaneously working on a new short film based on his family’s own experience living in Africa and the post-colonial guilt that accompanied it.