Brian Penn
- Nov 24, 2020
- 2 min read

Fashion short film review

★★

Written and Directed by: #LoongWah

Short film review by: Brian Penn

Never shirking a challenge, I’ve always subscribed to John F. Kennedy’s assertion that we do things not because they are easy but because they are hard. Fashion falls into the latter category, but the challenge was sadly beyond me on this occasion. I was comprehensively defeated by a puzzling collection of images backed with a dated disco beats soundtrack. Bereft of any real dialogue the semblance of narrative was completely lost. Having watched the film I am no wiser as to its purpose or meaning.

So the action supposedly lands on a host from the Midnight Express Discotheque (Chong Kah Hing). Cue a montage of extreme close-ups featuring performers at the aforementioned nightspot and a reassuringly diverse customer base. The point being made here isn’t entirely clear, but maybe it’s just sailed quietly over my head.

If the lack of clarity in plotting isn’t enough there’s also the soundtrack; which veers from Shaft style 70s funk to Kraftwerk inspired Europop. I found the eclectic approach quite engaging until an original song called ‘fashion’ made its appearance. I have never heard such a tuneless and flat delivery of a song. It momentarily took my mind off the visuals which seemed increasingly reliant on cross dressing, chain smoking blondes with bad make-up. Brief conversations about what time the show starts seem way out of context, not that I really got any notion of structure in the piece. Was it a drama or documentary, maybe it was neither?

Perhaps the idea is to keep the viewer guessing, but why commit anything to celluloid when it’s totally devoid of reason or logic; film making can’t be that easy. Covid permitting, I could take a crew to a Premier League game of football and film the reaction of fans watching their team play. Without explanation or context it becomes a pointless exercise, which I’m sorry to say this film largely is. It gets an extra star to represent the curiosity that lurks deep within me.