Capsule Review Challenge
The first writing assignment in the MWFF Critics Lab is the capsule review challenge. Our cohort of emerging critics are given the task of writing a 150-word review of a short film, capturing the essence of the film and their perspective in a short-form piece.
Kotoba
by Hannah Torregosa
Kotoba (Kaede Miyamura, 2022)
“He fell into a deep well because he didn’t list-en… list-en… li-”
Inspired by writer-director Kaede Miyamura’s own childhood, Kotoba paints a candid yet fantastical depiction of the immigrant experience; in all its awkwardness, wonder, and isolation. Facing a major language barrier, Hina struggles to find her place amidst the foreign schoolyard of gibberish.
Derrick Duan’s surrealist animations whisk audiences into Hina’s whimsical inner world, wherein her godlike animal friend, Holly the Sheep, becomes her English teacher and saviour from seemingly inescapable loneliness. The discrepancy between the childlike simplicity of Hina and Holly’s cartoon animated forms and the detailed sketch of the surrounding Australian flora provides a charmingly playful interpretation of diasporic alienation.
Yet Kotoba begs to remain grounded. Only when Hina breaks free from her all-consuming escapism through real-life conversation does she discover glimmers of genuine connection. The first step to friendship despite all differences being, to listen.
Mary Mary
by Grace Boschetti
In the opening moments of Ella Gilbert’s lovely, semi-biographical Mary Mary, a pair of teenage girls practise a choreographed dance in front of a bedroom mirror. Momentarily, I was reminded of Peter Jackson’s similarly mid-twentieth century New Zealand set Heavenly Creatures – it’s a tender glimpse at the sweet, strange, implicitly romantic nature of female friendships. In Gilbert’s short, the prospect of fulfilling the plan she and her best friend have together devised for their next phase of life prompts 18-year-old Mary (Maya Le Roux) to make a desperate attempt at self-inducing an abortion. When this fails, the choice is taken out of her hands.But while Gilbert’s nuanced approach acknowledges the injustice of Mary’s losing out on a much hoped for path in life, it also offers hope for her future. This hope is poignantly reflected in Mary Mary’s final dedication, which also reveals the director’s deeply personal connection to the story.
Match Point
by Riley Waite
Match Point (Alisha Mehra, 2022)
“You think we’ll let you live in this house, while you waste your time on a hobby?”
Match Point tells of an Australia seldom represented on the screen, highlighting the internal quandary that afflicts many children of First-Generation Australian families: how do you wish to navigate the world, and how are you expected to? Raj Sharma (Kaivu Suvarna) is tethered to the increasing demands of badminton training, abandoned university studies, and a family expecting academic success. After training takes precedence, he must win the annual championship to prove badminton worthy to his mother.
Thao “Tom” Luong (Andrew Dang) is a janitor at the sports centre holding the championship, confronted with a glimpse of his past as a badminton player. The prize money could provide his ill mother the treatment she gravely needs. Sharma and Luong’s stories run parallel as they contend for the championship, fuelled by the desperation of circumstance.
Burning of the Gods
by Ruby O'Sullivan-Belfrage
How do you burn a God when fire can’t touch time?
Sure, and deftly bright, Burning of the Gods strides through eras. Karen Williams’ short, in ultra-marine hues and vibrating complexity, shows rather than tells a Polynesian story of human impact. A young man witnesses an island’s varied history – the petrol chug of tourism, missionary intervention, and fishing practices of his ancestorial tīpuna. Williams speaks to a generational fabric, the container for abundant time. Such warps and wefts of lineage protect a way of living so that it might be reached for by those alive today.
Time bloats in the film. Within non-linear tides of story and knowing, we come across a type of haunting that seeks not to apprehend, but to remember.
The burning deities in question are the things time itself touches. In the commanding short, questions, rather than their answers are the currency of meaning.
The MWFF shorts program screens on Saturday March 23 and Sunday March 24 at ACMI. Get your tickets here: https://www.mwff.org.au/screenings-24