The other day I saw the movie the First Grader (2010) starring Oliver Litondo as the ex Mau Mau freedom fighter who fights for his right to go to school at 84. After having watched the movie, I watched a couple of interviews about the movie on you-tube. To my surprise, I learnt that Oliver Litondo hasn't acted about twenty years. I thought he was really good. I checked his IMDb entry and I saw he played in this short film after that. I found "The Truth About Stanley" on vimeo. "No home, no belongings, plenty of baggage,"reads the film's concise summary on vimeo. For those who expect to find the truth about Stanley, the film doesn't offer much in a nonlinear,abstract storyline. Oliver Litondo plays a homeless Congolese man, who likes to tell stories. He doesn't seem to care about the stark realities of life by hanging on to his vivid imagination. He says "That's what happens when you start to lose yourself. Memories come that much easier. His only close friend seems to be Sam (Raif Clarke), another homeless, a runaway kid. He doesn't seem to be as carefree as Stanley. "You just sit there, making up stories. Why do you act like everything's alright? It's not all right." He says. While Stanley finds comfort in his stories, Sam creates this chimerical image of a devoted father he never had. I guess, everyone of us has our ways to deal with personal trauma and escape from realities. With its symbolic scenes, inconclusive storyline, scanty dialogue, and gloomy cinematography the film takes its power from the music contributions by Radiohead ("Give Up the Ghost") and Mumford & Sons ("I Gave You All"),along with a piano score by composer Jon Opstad throughout the film. The Truth About Stanley tries to attract attention to the growing homelessness problem in the UK and that's why they offer the film to the world to watch for free. If they didn't, this some twenty minute film would be hard to sell.
