I wanted to really like “Pencil Fighting.” I mean, granted, in the end the concept is interesting, the scenes are humorous, and the direction is tight, but beyond that “Pencil Fighting” left me generally apathetic to the entire story and I just didn’t really know what I thought of it. Then watching it a second time, I realized that I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to. While you have to really appreciate what director and writer Fro Rojas is getting at, often times “Pencil Fighting” left me unsatisfied, especially since there seemed to be so much more that could have been done with the concept and story.
Instead we’re really only given a constantly erratic tonal change along with a format switch of documentary and narrative that’s often pretty jarring and spastic to sit through. Pair that with the melodramatic narration and it doesn’t completely win as a comedic short that really succeeds in respective areas of genre, and production. Aside from that, the acting leaves much to be desired, with performances that are either much too weak to stay focused on the narrative, or over the top to where it makes the film feel more like a wacky comedy instead of a comedy based around eccentricity.
Rojas strives for a Wes Anderson atmosphere and while it can almost resemble it, “Pencil Fighting” sadly has a noticeable uneven pacing, and a story that sadly goes on longer than it really should. At twenty three minutes “Pencil Fighting” can feel stretched and the ultimate resolution is much too trite to really enjoy. Fro Rojas is no slouch as a director, and it’s clear from “Pencil Fighting” that he has quite a big future in filmmaking ahead of him. “Pencil Fighting” looks very much unlike the typical low budget short documentary and that’s a good thing because he builds his film to look much more like a combination of Wes Anderson and Jim Jarmusch.
Rojas definitely has an eye for the eccentric and I look forward to seeing more from him. Rojas really has his ducks in a row, it’s just the delivery of his concept that doesn’t completely win with me, in the end, in spite of the potential this has to be a launch point for a career. In spite of the great direction and atmosphere, “Pencil Fighting” really wasn’t a home run cinematically. Years from now when this movie is a cult classic, I’ll be one of the minority proclaiming that it really didn’t work with me in spite of the deserved status. Whether that’s a compliment or a caveat, I’ll leave it up to you to decide.