I just watched Dan Hentschel's new short film: I Lost My Wallet On Catalina Island. I am blown away by the cinematic command Dan demonstrates in this film. He is articulating an entirely new type of cinematic rpoduct. Part of what makes this film so powerful to me is that I can feel he's trying to express this huge thing, decades in the making and spanning civil infrastructure, music and fine art and at the same time he's just living in the modern world with many problems that he's wrestling with constantly.
Dan understands the world in a deep way. He pays attention to details others don't know exist, and finds tons of value in every shot and idea that enters his mind. His life and work are frought with constant pain which if you have a brain is something yopu ought to be feeling and if you feel, ought to be in a frenzy to figure out how the fuck you will reconcile. That's dan. A bald ass weird ass homie. He's leveraged the content economy more effectively than anyone who tries, and even through the memes and viral clips - consistently releases tragic emotional educational intellectual cinematic pieces like this that would make even the most accomplished award winning filmmakers wish to be a vlogger.
I know Dan is only at the beginning of his journey. The greatness that i consistently see in Dan's work - combined with his total rejection of trying to be understandable or likeable - is the identifying mark of greatness. Today he is making films about being unhappy in a hotel room. Wishing his life could be better. That's what makes his work so powerful. Not that it is relatable, but that it is real. In all its pain and glory, Dan takes everything he has - all his limits - and makes them beautiful. It's greatness so rare and powerful that it's only natural its subject be tortured, at least for a short while.