Eternally Child

Official Oaxaca Film Festival

ETERNALLY CHILD By Lorena Sopi

This is a well-shot and haunting short film. Its greatest strength is its style and aesthetic. The dusky black and white sequences create an intense atmosphere, appropriate for the deathbed of a father mourning his dead son. The mood of the film was consistent and sustained effectively the emotional intensity of the protagonist's dying breaths and longing for atonement. You have created a visually stunning work here. The chief aims through this was achieved was the skilful use of lighting and contrast. The shadowy scenes in black and white and the dusty interiors in the old house complemented each other nicely. The switch to color in the fifth minute was particularly effective. Using the bright outside light coming in through the door only briefly served as a powerful transition between scenes. The script is deserving of praise; such muscular writing is not easy. You set up the story efficiently and are economical with dialogue throughout. The interactions between the dead son and his father are also handled well. Although the dialogue is sparse, a good deal of emotions are exchanged between the two. These various elements constitute the strength of this project. Under no circumstances would I change any of these. Nonetheless, there are a few points that need to be addressed, that possibly should have been handled differently. In one of the opening credits (the one reading 'a film by Lorena Sopi') your name is written is much smaller text behind the bigger version of it. Although very nearly unnoticeable, these sorts of editing details are the sorts of things that should all be ironed out before submission. Loose ends like this dull the overall impact of the film. There were a few grammatical errors in the subtitles, again something that detracts from the overall impact of the film. For example you twice had an exclamation mark before an ellipsis (!...). Although you have worked well to fit such an emotive story into such a sort space of time, more could have been made of the father's catharsis of having his son forgive him, both visually and narratively. It seemed too swift a resolution to something that had tormented the father throughout his life. The shot of the bowls of mud panning to the two curled up on the sofa didn't feel powerful enough to end such a well thought-out film. If I had one quote that would summarize the project, it would be this: "Sopi tells a beautiful and poetic story of a father's quest for atonement" - Persis LOVE