One of the most beautiful flights of fancies are born during the most mundane tasks, like taking the subway for your daily commute. However, translating these images on screen and ensuring that strength of their dreamy visions is not lost is no easy task. A Circle Line Train triumphs over the same obstacle most efficiently, leaving you with stunning visual storytelling. When coupled with a complementary voiceover, the world that is conjured for you truly makes one wonder - is this the real life, is this just fantasy? Inspired by the iconic Queen song, the film takes us into parallel realms that the protagonist, Zarah, inhabits - what is and what could have been. The powerful contrast brings to life a world of vast expanses of nature, the indomitable spirit of the same finding an echo in the existence that the protagonist herself leads, moving from one adventure to another, to places unseen, to dreams that were once unrealized and lovers that were once forgotten and unknown. Whether the duration of this journey is years, months or simply the few minutes of a train ride, it remains redundant, even if momentarily so. At the same time, if it is a world of limitless skies and oceans, it is also one of personal demons, addictions and a haunting past. It is amidst all of this that Zarah is located, and yet, the circle line train never meanders from its route, Zarah never forgets to open her eyes from the dream she was having, to carry on with her fixed path and way of life in the city of London.

A Circle Line Train | Short Film of the Day

Hopes and dreams can easily fall in the category of cliches when it comes to their exploration in cinema and art. The film, an interplay of the same ideas, steers clears of the dangerous territory to instead put forth a potentially fresh take on the same. A man finds himself at an unusual bar, one which is home to a portal to the past, and thus begins his own interaction with the idea of dreams. The events that follow come to acquire a surreal tone, further attempting to enhance the narrative that is now constituted by several artists with their own respective dreams. Through an engagement with the concept of time, past and the present, dreams and fears, there is also a sense of a differentiation between being good at your craft, and achieving a genius stature in the same, as well as your own self-inflicted doubts and inhibitions that keep you away from it. The film is notable in the manner in which it conjures all of these concerns, and yet manages to maintain a uniqueness of the tone throughout. Additionally, the dream-like atmosphere is created to perhaps even spur a desire to fight for their dreams even within the viewer themselves.

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