The Nativitree

One night, like most nights, my partner Chris and I were on the phone. "I want to make a movie about a really sad person cutting down a Christmas tree," he told me.

Of course, I did too. That was all I ever wanted to make. Especially after he called again the next day.

"I’m not sure why yet, but all I know is that the tree must end up on fire."

He was right. It must. Because there isn’t anything casual about cutting down a Christmas tree in tears. This narrative was to become a quest, and like all quests, this would involve his heart just as much as his hands.

The structure of the story here is not all that unusual. In fact, it is barely original. "The Nativitree" accidentally ended up following almost all twelve stages of what Joseph Campbell famously described as the patterns of “The Hero’s Journey”. It is a typical arc that begins with a call to adventure, leading us through thresholds to cross, innermost caves to enter, to a reward, a resurrection and a return with the elixir as our ludicrous grand finale. Our hero faces his usual external and internal struggles, developing a resounding sense of manhood along the way.

“A Hero’s Journey. A Christmas Story. A Celebration of Fire and Ice.”

It is descriptions like these that exemplify how pretentious we are willing to get with our comedy, but it paints a picture. But I actually get laughed at when I tell most people that "The Nativitree" is a comedy. In fact, that may be one of the very few times this movie makes people laugh. And I get it, it is a very sad and in many ways a very unfunny comedy. Someone even told me they cried at the end. But this world was built in the guise of a comedy. It is too absurd to exist, and yet it all feels so real. There is nothing unserious about this comedy, at least in the perspective of our protagonist.

In a serious comedy, we can only be successful so long as we take the hero’s plight seriously. An upset grown man cutting down a tree on Christmas Eve is clearly the premise for a comedy. Therefore, it is in its tone that we are able to empathize with the young adventurer. This is a comedic short filmed dramatically. It is whimsical and it is biblical. It is slap-stick and it is devastating. It is tragic and it is hopeful. And to Chris and I, it is funny as hell.

To others, it may be quite literally.