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★★★★
Directed by: Filipe Piteira
Written by: #FilipePiteira
Starring: #SusanaBlazer, #JoãoDuarteCosta
Portuguese short film Ephemerality (aka Efemeridade) explores the transient nature of love and emotion, capturing the natural quest for connection which changes as quickly as it can be made.
Written and directed by Filipe Piteira, the movie stars Susana Blazer as Mulher - a woman searching for meaning and direction following the possible break up with her partner Homem (João Duarte Costa). Through sparse but poignant dialogue, the audience is able to piece together the central character's anxiety over the role of love in her life. As we see Mulher in different locations, sometimes on the bed with Homem, or aimlessly walking through a dreamlike landscape of rocks, her confusion borders on disorientation as she attempts to make sense of her own, complex feelings.
It's a mood piece that plays to its strengths well. Ephemerality has a fluid atmosphere that doesn't anchor the viewer down with plot points or backstory. Instead, the short movie relies on the physicality of the performers (in particular a strong performance from Blazer) to engulf the audience in an almost silent love story.
The heartache and pathos layer the piece perfectly to ensure you are absorbed into the story, allowing one to quiz the details in their own mind as you experience the tender and emotive familiarity of a person going through separation.
Piteira delivers a visually pleasing short. The use of natural landscape, bright lighting, and cityscape views is the perfect way to arrest the viewer and put them into the same contemplative mood as Mulher. The same goes for the slow and steady editing which has a dreamlike quality to it. We are never asked to halt our ponderings or jolted out of our reverie for some bump in the road. Piteira expects and allows the audience to consider the thematic depth of the piece, question our attitudes on the transcendental nature of love, and what it means to see it come and go.
The score was a little heavy handed. There is a thumping piano that does run the risk of derailing the otherwise subtle and atmospheric movie. Perhaps done to add tension and juxtapose the lighter elements of the film, it felt mostly distracting and tended to feel at odds with the graceful elements surrounding it. This is my only gripe, however, in an otherwise solid piece of #filmmaking.
Full of mesmeric cinema and thematic tension, Ephemerality is a transportive short film loaded with emotion and poignancy.
Watch the official Movie Trailer for the film below.
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