Shadows
Why is it special?
Little Marall accompanies her parents to a dinner where all the adults behave in a very strange way. Over the course of the evening, she will discover a mysterious shadow roaming the house.
The short film opens with images that, little by little, produce a sense of unease — establishing a certain unreal tone and reinforcing the idea that we are in the realm of fiction at every moment.
From there, the story unfolds by accessing different layers of truth about the case, in the manner of a riddle that foregrounds the structural forms of storytelling for little Marall’s investigation, as well as the construction and creation of a fiction from multiple perspectives. The central one is the appearance of a shadow wandering through the house, which has the little girl transfixed — she keeps trying to tell her parents, without success.
The short is interesting, though in the end it falls short of its own reflective ambitions, which end up carrying more weight than the fiction itself.
On a visual level, the Swedish director, Jerry Carlsson, tries to infuse his short with cinematic elements that contribute something to say and make us think. A space emerges that exposes the fiction through certain unreal aspects — like the shadow — while at the same time setting the story in the present, in a community driven by a party where the adults behave like automatons, much to little Marall’s bewilderment. But even more relevant is how Jerry Carlsson uses the media — offering a sharp and accurate look at today’s emotional manipulation and the possibility of manufacturing monsters from nothing — to corner his prime suspect through a fiction he constructs across every sphere, knowing full well that today, truth and lies are concepts that have largely lost their meaning. The new fiction is the one built publicly through the media, whether it is true or not.
To close, I’ll say that I was struck by the music — “Fiesta en los Andes” — perfect for a kind of dance/ritual that helped me understand the short more deeply, since it is music typically used in purification ceremonies, for instance in rites honoring ancestors and the dead. Watching them dance is genuinely unsettling.
Marall, frightened by everything around her, feels a connection to the woman who had been turned away earlier.
If you’ll allow me, I’d like to dedicate this piece to “Ariadna,” a special friend.
Magnificent — the scene in which Marall figures out where the “shadow’s” body is hidden. The little girl is caught by the owner of the house, who asks her “What are you doing here?” But Marall proves she is a free thinker by answering cleverly. In the end, her parents decide to leave, and when they’re already in the car, Marall sees her friend leaving too; they smile at each other and wave with their hands the same way she used to wave at the shadow… happy.
A “SPLENDID” WORK OF ART.
Robingato