page_title: Die Schneider Krankheit
section_title: Critical response
hierarchical_section_title: Die Schneider Krankheit / Reception / Critical response
caption_attribution_description: English: Gas Drill at a London Hospital- Gas Masks For Babies Are Tested, England, 1940 Three nurses put on their gas masks, whilst a fourth nurse attends to the gas masks of two babies in the cot in front of her. Adults were told to put on their own gas mask before helping children or other adults with theirs.
context_page_description: Die Schneider Krankheit is a 2008 Spanish short science fiction mockumentary film written, directed, and produced by Javier Chillon, with brief animated sequences by Alicia Manero. Chillon's first film was shot on black and white Super 8 film, with a Spanish-language voice-over dubbed over another German one. With credits and most other onscreen text in German, the short film gives the impression of being a West German educational documentary film of the 1950s or 1960s. Its subject is the effect of an extraterrestrial plague brought to Earth by a Soviet chimpanzee cosmonaut after its capsule crash landed near the border with East Germany in 1958. Financed entirely by Chillon himself, the short film was selected for more than 200 international film festivals and received more than 45 awards within the first two years of its release, including a Méliès d'Argent in 2010.
context_section_description: Critics were impressed by the realism of Die Schneider Krankheit, which "painstakingly recreates an alternate history through a seamlessly authentic aesthetic." The editors at Sin Final en el Guion suggest it is probably one of the best first films by any director. The realism achieved is of such a high degree that it was rejected by some early festivals because selectors believed archival footage had been used. As a result, disclaimers were placed at the beginning of the film to "let the viewer know that the images are original, and not extracted from real documentaries." The opening sequence and end credits, along with the dual Spanish-German soundtrack, appear to have been convincing enough to lead some viewers to believe the film is genuinely of German origin (and in one case, Russian). It even won a Best Documentary award at the Sax International Film Festival.
  Once the initial misunderstanding about archival footage had been cleared up, the short caught on very quickly, and received "raves on the festival circuit". Virginie Sélavie calls the short "inventive, intelligent", and "fantastic": the "50s newsreel style is perfectly reproduced, while the reasonable tone of the reporter is brilliantly contrasted with the outlandish events depicted." Christopher Webster calls the short a "perfect blend of newsreel, visual FX and creative storytelling".
   Artie Knapp was impressed right from the first shots, "with the camera tilting down through the trees to show us the crash site at long range ... a nearly prefect rendition of old documentary style right down to how the camera would move."
  This is science fiction that is a deadly accurate portrayal of the calm, governmental, ponderous yet urgent, carefully-framed and full-of-import quality found in mid-century documentary films.  The humor is sly and builds its effect gradually. It's also somewhat frightening.
  Reviewing the film at the Flatpack Festival, Alex King calls it a highlight of the event, but found it more than "somewhat frightening": "it captures perfectly the dark, clunky feel of old newsreels yet every single shot is created through original footage."
  The scene where an innocent 50s nuclear family sit around the television all wearing sinister WWII gas-masks while the narrator explains how "normal family life" has continued despite the epidemic is one of the most chilling things I have ever seen on film.
  The special effects were likewise good enough to give a French reviewer goosebumps, who also suggested the short could have made a good story segment on The Twilight Zone.  A reviewer on Ain't It Cool News called the film "without a doubt, one of the very oddest – and very best – bits of film that I've come across this year," advising: "Don't try to understand, just enjoy." A Canadian reviewer at the Fantasia International Film Festival expected that a short mockumentary "should be awful, but this 10 minute gem shot on 8mm Tri-X stock is brilliant."
  Tim Hall, of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, gives the short a grade of "C", finding it "somewhat enjoyable if "a little bizarre"; he "wasn't sure where they were going with this film".
caption: Photograph: "Gas Drill at a London Hospital- Gas Masks For Babies Are Tested, England, 1940"
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