Slamdance 2021: MAN UNDER TABLE, Trailer Premiere For Noel Taylor's Absurdist Comedy

Set against the backdrop of a comically surreal and anachronistic Los Angeles, a beleaguered young man tries to write a movie but instead gets pulled into everyone else's projects as he hallucinates his way through a bizarre indie film scene. “Guy” is writing a movie, or so he claims numerous times in bars, parties, pretty much wherever he can. Guy eventually stumbles onto a hodgepodge of filmmakers including an Indie Darling and her lackey, and a washed up never-was who enlists Guy to write what could possibly be the dumbest movie ever.

 

MAN UNDER TABLE is a microbudget alchemy of homemade nightmare comedy with an absurdist sense of tragedy from music video director / filmmaker / actor Noel David Taylor. Inspired by his own dark and humorous experiences, MAN UNDER TABLE presents a visually arresting, comically sharp and surreal vision of the film industry as seen through one young man’s hapless and absurd attempts to write a film.

 

Written, directed, produced, and starring Taylor, MAN UNDER TABLE is a micro-budget yet fully realized fever vision of arresting imagery, droll wit, and razor sharp satire that skewers the indie film scene and artistic solipsism to hilarious effect. 

 

Inspired by the act of artistic fumbling for discovery as much as success, said Taylor about his self-deprecating inspiration for MAN UNDER TABLE:

 

I hope to elicit both connective and commiserative responses in the viewer. The reason I started making films was because watching them made me feel less alone. Charlie Kaufman once spoke about reaching an audience: “I want to do something I don’t know how to do, and offer you the experience of watching someone fumble - because I think maybe that’s what art should offer - an opportunity to recognize our common humanity and vulnerability… We try to be experts because we’re scared.” I hope people can watch this and relate not only to feeling lost, abused, trampled on, overlooked, but also feeling so unsure of oneself, so shiftless and useless and alone. I hope they can go, oh cool, this guy feels that way too.