“Past Forward”
David O. Russell’s dreamy thriller à la Hitchcock for Prada
“Nobody made a nickel,” says director David O. Russell (The Fighter; Silver Lining Playbook) about the 18-minute fashion short, “Past Forward,” which he created for Prada’s Spring 2017 show. “We all just made it to do it. We made it in four days.” Russell says he had total freedom in creating the dreamlike, retro-futuristic, black-and-white, multi-culti and Hitchcockian thriller he ended up with (watch the full video, above). Miuccia Prada told him, “You can do whatever you want.”
In “Past Forward,” to the strains of Bernard Herrmann’s achingly beautiful themes from Hitchcock’s Vertigo and North by Northwest, three women—Allison Williams, Freida Pinto and Kuoth Wiel—act out stories without a beginning, middle or end. They encounter John Krasinski and Sacha Baron Cohen, among others. The settings are vaguely sci-fi and ominous, like the Broad LA. This short film has the aimlessness and despair of Antonioni’s L’Avventura—it’s like nothing Russell has done before. For Prada, it’s a thoughtful and provocative way to embody fashion. And for us at PROVOKR, it’s an imaginative and sexy way to lose yourself for 18 minutes.
