Zoo is a notable union of a powerful story and equally strong visuals to supplement it. In terms of technique, the film follows all the rules of sound, music and camera angles to create an atmosphere of suspense, uncertainty as well as to mount action, and yet, it does not come across as pedantic. The storytelling, instead, is marked by efficiency and seamlessness. While the narrative raises potent, urgent questions about a desperate need of the hour, the approach adopted for the same is simple, making its message all the more impactful in the face of complete absence of garish devices or tools. 

The film is a comment on racism, drawing the viewer's attention to a conversation specifically around police brutality that shook the world and made it sit up the past year. However, it should be noted that it brings in personal experiences, ensuring that it is not simply a macrocosmic narrative about a white and a black man, but also of two people with their own internal, individual struggles and frustrations. Further, the manner of treatment of this dissatisfaction offers a sharp contrast. For instance, a white character, who comes from a space of entitlement owing to his racial identity, is convinced of being allowed the opportunity to inflict violence on another with impunity, even in the face of all calmness and rationality received from the other party. 

Your dissatisfactions are perhaps then allowed to find expression in the violence and cruelty you inflict on others if you are of a certain race, lurks the subtle comment within the folds of the film; like in a zoo where we are all animals, waiting to give in to our bestial sides under the right circumstances. Or worse, since the existing hierarchy is engineered to dismiss the marginalized further to a realm defined by the absolute disregard for their life. 

Though the technique and visual approach of the film has already been appreciated, it is important to mention the same again. The film deliberately drops visual cues regarding what is to come. For instance, it is a beautifully ominous shot of our protagonist peering into a store while metal rods make their presence felt against a glass window, making the scene suggestive of incarceration, a prison. It is precisely after this moment that the tone of the film changes. The plot moves from personal, localised struggles of debauchery and petty thefts to a thematic concern that would come to raise potent questions about systemic racism and oppression. It is especially important to invoke this particular visual image at this juncture because it further asserts the film's title - the reality of a world where a black man is born within the cage a festering society has already chosen for him. 

Additionally, there is an emphasis on the fierceness of youth which is allowed to you depending on your racial identity. The body language of a white man before a potential figure of authority offers a disturbing juxtaposition with that of a black man. 

Within the body of the film rest several significant comments while it continues to maintain its crispness throughout. There is a portrayal of how mindless violence often leads to a cycle of hatred, an action-reaction equation, a cause and effect. One attack on the oppressed can sometimes lead to a retaliation the oppressor did not expect. The film does not take sides regarding this reaction, it only presents it to the viewer in an objective manner. 

What is especially notable about the final product is that it manages to bring in all of these concerns (and more) to encourage a pertinent discussion on the reality of existence determined by your racial identity. The same is achieved organically, without stumbling or using cliches or sentimentalism as crutches. It is indeed in this confident assertion of its thoughts, the consequent clarity of the message and the eventual realisation of these intentions that the success of the film lies.

Zoo | Short Film of the Day

'Wuhan Driver' is a timely, and crucial story that speaks of the many faces of racism. Overt and insidious, intentional and unconscious, systemic and loudly enforced - racism has many forms, and the short film is a sincere endeavor in exploring them. 

Essentially the story of only one night when a driver attempts to turn up for his job, and execute the tasks that follow, the film proposes how when the same tasks are viewed through the lens of race, everything changes. How the rise of a virus in a part of the world across the globe is blamed on a man in the US simply because he looks a certain way or speaks differently. In the process, the absurdity of it all is pronounced emphatically and unequivocally by the narrative. 

The confined physical space of the visuals further echo this sense of isolation that surrounds the protagonist, someone in a space that refuses to accept him as its own. The film is an important story, and it is a very welcome prospect to look forward to more storytelling by Tiger Ji, as his voice evolves and grows to find its footing.

Wuhan Driver | Short Film of the Day

The theme of the short film, a protagonist in its own right, is anger. The many sides of anger and the subsequent emotions and actions it can lead to - a vehement dismissal of an opinion, an erasure of someone’s identity, a violent rejection of life itself - all become different components that the narrative engages with. The same is achieved by introducing us to three characters, Liz, Kuan, and Mike, and three very crucial events in each of their lives. 

The film undertakes the humongous task of dealing with simultaneous narratives with distinct styles. Though impactful, this approach sometimes runs the danger of bordering on incongruency when the components are weaved together as a whole within the film. 

However, the spectrum of emotions the film covers is constructed with care, further bolstered by commendable performances. It's rooted in the very real world of the Black Lives Matter movement and the pitfalls of woke culture, with racism as a constant thread tying the film as one. The presence of anger and its different forms remains consistent throughout as well, leaving the door open for similar explorations of an emotion or state of being in more projects.

Someone to Destroy | Short Film of the Day

The title of the film, a portmanteau of Filipino and American, sets the horizon of expectation right at the start. The pursuit to not only belong and find a sense of belonging but also figure out ideas of self and identity, where you came from in order to understand where you are headed, become core thematic concerns of the film. The engagement with all of these remains lucid and earnest throughout. 
Our protagonist is a young boy who finds himself straddling two identities without being sure on which side he truly falls. If on the one hand, he wears Nikes and eats bacon, his connection to the culinary aspect of his Filipino heritage, as well as his strong desire to explore more of it, remains unshakeable, alongside uncertainty and doubts. The narrative shows how the two can indeed co-exist in a person. 
The film presents an engagement with all of this and some more in a unique, authentic voice that is controlled and understated in a notable manner. The final result exhibits more potential in terms of storytelling and screenplay than could be explored in this brief project. It should definitely be interacted with further in subsequent endeavors.

FilAm | Short Film of the Day

The primary engagement of Dreamer is one of immense cultural and social relevance. While dealing with notions of racism and its far-reaching consequences on those who find themselves at its receiving end is a conversation of all times, its resonance has only gained more momentum in contemporary times, ensuring that we truly sit up and pay attention to the several undercurrents that are making their presence felt. 

The narrative does its bit in furthering the said conversation by introducing us predominantly to a single experience of Dr Lily Cruz. As she stands before an immigration officer, a part of a lived reality that might have no more than the significance of a mundane occurrence for the person of the right skin color, little does Dr Cruz realize that her world is about to be turned upside down. 

Through the brief, but impactful exchange between the officer and the protagonist, an important comment is made about the deep bias and prejudice that operates within different sections of society, leaving one utterly and frustratingly powerless in the face of potentially oppressive and arbitrary societal forces. At the film’s conclusion, lies a very crucial comment about the same, and the adverse aftermath of racism, sometimes overt, but other times, more inert, systemic, and therefore insidious, giving rise to the absolute need for the said dialogue to be furthered.

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