Fresh Fixes of Minimalist Comedy: 'The Mute Series' Strips Storytelling Down to Its Purest Form

After a five-year hiatus, Andy Lambert’s cult absurdist film series, 'The MUTE Series', is back – sharper, funnier, deadpannier than ever. Four new wordless comedy vignettes, crafted with meticulous visual precision, have just dropped online on The MUTE Series official site.

Andy, who directs commercials with Dark Energy, started the series by ‘accident' when he had a free hour left over at the end of an ad shoot. The series has now stretched to twenty-two 'film snacks served dry'.

The new short films cast their mordant eye on a variety of contemporary themes: the urban road wars between cyclists and motorists (Stop), the strange desire to be ‘unfree’ (The Prisoner), the ethical grey areas of everyday life (Clinical Intervention), and the increasing role of emotion in political office (An Emotional State).

After a successful festival run, two of the new films (Stop & The Prisoner) were selected for a theatrical release, playing for a month each on 36 screens in seven independent cinemas across California, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Illinois in the US at the end of last year. Another of the new films, Clinical Intervention, is due to play as a supporting short in 50 cinemas across France next month.

About The MUTE Series

Created over the last decade, The MUTE Series is made up of twenty-two films that run between 1½ to three minutes. The series doesn’t just eschew dialogue, but strips filmmaking down to its most basic elements, adhering to no less than three strict rules:

RULE 1 — No dialogue

RULE 2 — No camera moves

RULE 3 — Only one shot

The constraints function as a cinematic equivalent to the avant-garde literary movement OuLiPo that explored how creativity could flourish within self-imposed restrictions and give The MUTE Series films a highly distinctive, 'less-is-more' cinematic language; a language that has its own rhythm, musicality and wit. It feels both experimental, yet instantly accessible, like a contemporary form of silent cinema.

The series’ droll, absurdist humour also shares a lineage with Jacques Tati’s meticulous visual comedy and Roy Andersson’s deadpan tableaux, but with a sharper, twist-driven edge. Where Tati and Andersson revel in ponderous slow-burning vignettes, The MUTE Series –with its tight, snack-sized format – distils that sensibility into compact narratives that build toward an unexpected twist, delivering a sharper comedic hit within the strict formal constraints.

Surveying a range of identifiable moments from modern life, from the mundane to the surreal, the films find the ironic side of conformity, chance, and desire. Despite each film featuring different casts and locations, the series creates a strange but cohesive ‘world’ where no one speaks, with each film complementing and enhancing the others.

Critical Acclaim for The MUTE Series

"Funny, thoughtful, and surprisingly twisty... The MUTE Series is a compelling experiment in minimalism.” - TubeFilter

“Profound, mordant, hilarious… this series has understood what the post-aesthetic treatment of the 21st century is going to be.” - APAR.TV

"Like a modern-day Jacques Tati, Lambert creates his own absurdist universe out of life’s funny moments.” - Joanna Hogg, Director of The Souvenir

Represented by Dark Energy for UK commercials, Andy Lambert is know for his comedy performance ads, such as his riotous World Cup-themed 'Office Knockabout' for The Sun and his recent 'Find Your Fizz' ad for Pink Lady apples. Lambert is now developing a feature-length, wordless film in the spirit of The MUTE Series.