Stephen K Tsuchida, “A Ninja Pays Half my Rent” (2002)
Hilarious student short about finding the perfect room-mate (which could be extended to include the perfect tenant, the perfect boarder, the perfect spouse, whatever), this has punchy gags timed and edited well and the silliness is cleverly turned into fun and not a little sympathy for its hapless and hopeless main character. Barry (Timm Sharp) has to find a new room-mate after his pal (Anthony Liebetrau) tragically dies at breakfast: the poor sod pokes his grapefruit and a stream of juice hits his eye and penetrates and burns his brain through the optic nerve. A ninja (Shin Koyamada) answers Barry’s ad and the usual problems of getting used to each other’s dirty habits, schedules and other eccentricities, and working out who puts out the rubbish on rubbish nights and who will buy the milk and groceries follow. The two guys amicably settle into a routine but it’s not long before Barry is tangled up in a personal feud that can only end tragically.
The story is ingeniously constructed in a way that the full details of Barry’s recruiting process happen off-screen and only the more amusing aspects of Barry and the ninja living together are highlighted: everything we see occurred in the distant past and Barry is relating the events to his jogging partner (Steve Yager). The plot only goes into the present tense close to the end when Barry gets home and starts talking about lunch. The beauty of the flashback approach to Barry’s narration is that viewers see what Barry never notices: a conflict between his ninja flatmate and the ninja’s enemy (Tsuchida himself). Close-ups of the actors and of Sharp in particular demonstrate character and parody the ninja lifestyle stereotype.
The pace is generally quick though it drags a little through one skit in which Barry asks for the syrup while the ninja is deep in contemplation over his pancakes. This particular skit shows excellent editing, clever alternation of close-ups and framing of the dining-room scene, and panning in the shot where Barry repeats his request and suddenly finds the syrup right beside him though the ninja has not appeared to move but is instead communing with the pancake. Another memorable skit, and one that introduces a new tension and direction into the short, is where the ninja flatmate takes up his duel while Barry is engrossed in watching a nature documentary. The shot where Barry continues to watch TV, oblivious to the activity on the back couch behind him, is sure to become a classic for film students and audiences alike for its careful set-up and the perfect framing.
The climax is quick, tragic and comic as well: Barry finds himself in demand as the perfect flatmate among the (unseen) ninja community in his town (he’s not very bright and never notices anything much unless it’s an issue of personal hygiene) and it looks like he won’t want for future room-mates. It seems that to find the perfect room-mate, you have to be a perfect room-mate too.
Everything works well thanks to Tsuchida’s almost ninja-like approach to filming his baby: the clean and precise editing; the neat settings with their sharp lines; close-ups of Sharp’s face that capture every shade of expression; the contrast between Sharp’s likeable if clueless Barry and Koyamada’s wary and vigilant ninja, which the short plays up for comic effect; and the minimal script which quietly and artfully builds on its skits, along with the soft tinkling piano soundtrack that plays throughout the film, have something of the Zen Buddhist philosophy that initially informed the practice of ninjutsu in Japan.