Words are limited. For as bountiful as the vocabulary of any given dialect may be, there will always be certain moments, certain experiences, certain feelings, that are utterly beyond the grasp of the written or spoken word to express. The phrase “deafening silence” exists solely as an ironic testament to how the absence of words can say far more than the words themselves. It’s part of the reason why I have such adoration to the medium of cinema, as it’s a form of visual language and expression that can tap into emotions that, for as many words as I devote to any one of them in these reviews, I would be entirely unable to put into words myself. It’s this mode of human emotion, where the unspoken says volumes, that this short film excels at.
Rendered in scratchy lines and muted watercolours, it is the story of a couple going through the single greatest tragedy a couple can go through: The death of their child. The film’s utter lack of dialogue reflects the characters in-frame, as their grief has deadened their sense of feeling, filling them with so many things they want to say, that they want to express about their own heartbreak, yet only their shadows are capable of conveying any of it.
Despair and tragedy tend to get romanticised in the art
world, tying together the real-life hardships of a given artist to add meaning
to their work, as if the lowest points of human experience are the only
wellsprings from which genius flows. Except that emotional connection to this
kind of tragedy, to this brand of grief, isn’t a megaphone for expression; it’s
a silencer. It’s a block in the head and the heart that can’t bear to let out
all that is brewing within, lest it confirm the reality of the situation. Proximity and denial sleep in the same bed.
And it’s a reality that too many people on this side of the screen know first-hand, as the narrative is revealed to be the result of the child’s death during a school shooting. Not that it’s anywhere near as didactic as that development may suggest. Rather than serve as any kind of rallying cry for political change in a direct sense, it instead focuses solely on those left behind. On the guilt one feels at the event having happened, as if hindsight is some magical force that can prevent it from occurring wholesale. That memory that has you pleading, begging, for the past to turn out different, for there to have been some way that you could have stopped it, for the sake of not only the victim but yourselves as well.
It is genuinely astonishing how much emotional impact these filmmakers manage to squeeze into just ten minutes, with no spoken voices (save for a heart-squeezing music sequence) and the emotional vacuum of the flesh juxtaposed with the regret and pain of words unsaid. It has become cliché to compare just about any form of media to the classic Five Stages Of Grief, even when talking about actual grief, but the way the visuals and sound design convey those steps, from emotional distance to the levy breaking to accepting their shared life along with the unfortunate death, makes for a powerful viewing experience.
Over the course of writing this review, I’ve had to stop myself at several points because this film got me so worked up that I couldn’t see my computer screen through my sobbing tears, not sure if what I’ve been putting to paper is even legible. I will likely be feeling this for the rest of my day, even as I get my second review done for the day. I implore anyone who reads this, if you have the means to watch this film, please do so. It’s a vital piece of cinema about a very important topic, and even removed from its timely subject matter, its depiction of grief transcends all barriers. Even the ones of language, as despite everything I’ve already said about this, it still doesn’t measure up to what it feels like to see it unfold before your own eyes.
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