A beloved and joyful video game character becomes a vision of tragedy in The Unreachable Pyramid, an emotionally disturbing short film by Brady Hall. A young woman dresses herself in a giant Q-Bert costume to mask the painfulness of her existence, only to discover there is no escape from her anguish.

Hall has structured The Unreachable Pyramid in an exquisitely perfect fashion, switching the story back and forth between the inherent humor of the concept with the very genuine internal psychological drama of the main character, Christine, effortlessly played by Bernadette Cuvalo. For example, the film begins with morose music played over the opening credits, followed by a brief, but highly effective wordless scene detailing Christine’s tragic emotional state.

However, once she dresses as Q-Bert, there are of course scenes of Christine having to exist as a giant, rotund, armless creature, such as mashing her face in a bowl of Corn Flakes to eat and hopping around outside on city streets. (And one has to give enormous credit to Cuvalo for braving making such a public spectacle of herself.) The pet store scene is also a terrific one, bound to elicit a guffaw or two to those who have played the game.

The film ends, too, on a fantastically uncomfortable mix of humor and anguish.