Guaxuma

The short film attempts a lot of things and succeeds at all of them most gloriously. The narrative is an engagement with the transience and impermanence of things in so many ways. It foregrounds the inexorable passage of time felt in every moment of it, further emphasised by the voice of the narrator, overflowing with a gravity that will set the pace just right for the plot to develop.

The film is also a visual feat achieved most effortlessly by the seamless weaving together of a sprinkling of live action visuals with stunning animation. Primarily using the location of a beach the protagonist grew up on, the sand in itself becomes a character, the medium of narration, taking the viewer by the hand on her journey.

There is still so much more the film engages with - female friendships, the forever forward moving path of life from childhood to adulthood, an underlying strain of homosexuality, the relationship between the past, and the present and the unreliability of memory. Guaxuma does a stellar job of tying it all together, without making it look like a laborious task, and before the viewer can realise it, they have covered a huge distance within while seemingly partaking in the experiences of the protagonist.