Flamingos

December 1989 and Paolo takes his daughter to the local park . Paolo's daughter sees some flamingos in an enclosure and asks why they stand on one leg

This is an Italian short but somewhat unsatisfying . Francesca Coppola has shot a very beautiful for sure but you can't help feeling the stunning look to Italian cinema from the grandmasters like Visconti is a little bit too much of an influence . The pace is a little bit too languid and laid back for my liking . I suppose this is done to let the audience read the facial expressions on the characters faces and guess what's going on inside their minds . Another aspect is that the television in the background gives details of the fall of the Berlin wall but this historical event had me thinking it would tie in with the story but just leads to a dead end .

Not to be entirely negative the Italians are well known for their family bonds When asked about flamingos standing on one leg Paolo explains with a guilty look on his face . it's a defence mechanism so when they're attacked by predators they can escape because standing on one leg is advantageous to a flamingos blood flow and while learning this trivial fact it also sets up the ending and Paolo's obvious guilt sets up the subtext of the title . There's two ways this could go and thankfully it isn't the predator part that ties in with the end of the movie but it's a no less sad ending for all those involved