Remat

A bleak post-apocalyptic sci-fi feature directed by Alan Lambert and starring Milla Lonergan, Nova Farrelly, James Lonergan, Xavier Lonergan and Sean Daluz.

Helpfully, the film begins with a title card that explains that 'remat' is an abbreviation of 're-materialization', which is a function that restores an earlier condition.

What is the story? As mentioned, the setting is a post-apocalyptic world. The protagonists are a group of children all of which are dressed in what appear to be white sheets, wrapped around their bodies. The beginning involves what seems to be a funeral in a desert, where an adult (apparently the last adult on Earth) has just passed away. Now, the poor children are on their own and they embark on a journey through a wilderness that takes them to a forest where they encounter a variety of animals.

A fifity-minute-long film with no speech and an unsettling atmosphere. The setting is what seems to be an empty world where humanity is on the brink of extinction and people have apparently lost every type of material and transport and even clothing and now can travel only on foot or with the help of gigantic dogs. It is a frightening future where there does not seem to be much hope and the mood is supported by the ominous and dramatic music that is one of the highlights.

Some children are alone in nature and travel with massive dogs. That is pretty much all that happens, with the exception of the variety of animals that they encounter throughout, such as birds, snakes and fish and they mimic their movements with their hands. Since the children do not speak, it is challenging to comprehend their personality and differentiate them from each other, making them almost identical as they all also wear white sheets. Ostensibly, this feature is intended to be a quiet and meaningful journey, however, spending fifty minutes watching children in white sheets wondering the woods and not saying a word can be a bit dull. Plus, the screenplay does not directly explain what caused the catastrophic events that led to the end of civilisation. According to IMDb, the cause was climate change and that is indicated by vast landscapes without plant life and the presence of wildfires, however, that is not made clear in the film. And why do the children not speak and why do they wear white sheets (assuming they are sheets)?

The children appear to belong to a variety of races and that is the sole trait that distinguishes them from one another, because, as mentioned, they do not communicate verbally and they all wear the same clothing. Their faces are almost constantly emotionless and their form of communication arrives in the form of the hand gestures that they make when they imitate the movements of the animals that they see and when they form their shapes on the ground using twigs. Nothing is revealed about the young protagonists, not their past, not even their names and that makes it difficult to be interested in them.

The themes? This is a journey of survival, of uncertainty and about discovering new things as the children do when they encounter animals they have never seen before. It is also a story about people living in nature and about art imitating life like when the protagonists draw figures of the animals.

A speechless, slow-burning and unexciting experience. Some well-executed shots of landscapes and the atmospheric music are not enough to save this feature from an almost non-existent narrative and hollow characters.