The Healer

The Healer deals with some incredibly heavy topics. From discussion of attempted suicide to misplaced guilt and depression, it’s safe to say that our tragic but deeply sympathetic (at least by the halfway point) protagonist goes through a lot over the course of this almost half-an-hour short. The audience, too, experiences a great deal through the tortured young character – a credit to both the strength of the performance by Jason Buda, and of the exemplary technical craft surrounding our central figure. This is a truly wonderful script from writer Trudy Williams that understands the complexities of the healing progress, and feelings of disillusionment in young people.

 

We follow a tormented teenager who recently got into an ugly fight. His mother, worried sick, therefore takes him to a therapeutic farm of sorts; an area in which he’ll be expected to hopefully connect with and take care of a white horse. The audience is quickly let in on the fact that it’s because of his father’s sudden death that these self-destructive behaviours have manifested. He must be taught to conquer his anxiety, let go of everything weighing him down, and engage with a practice seemingly simple, natural, noiseless – and in that way, incredibly challenging.

 

This is a superbly edited film from a dramatic point of view. Every interaction is expressed beautifully through the pace of the cutting and clarity of the sequencing. But one element that maybe feels inconsistent with the specific look of the movie is the use of fades as they slightly bring you out of the movie. Now, if the film had adopted a more vintage, static look, these fades might work perfectly – but right now it doesn’t completely gel with this modern, handheld grit feel. Otherwise, a perfectly cut and arranged movie. Aesthetically, the light and camerawork manages to hit the perfect balance of gritty and poetic. The handheld, subjective cinematography reminds one of the works of Andrea Arnold, and yet – like Arnold – the filmmakers often chose to move away from that domestic mode and draw our attention to the natural world, the colour of the sunset, and the beauty of a quiet moment... much like the journey Buda’s character ultimately takes.

 

The horse is very much the most significant, and most evocative image in the movie. A semiotic device implemented ingeniously as metaphor to reflect on the mental progress and stumbling blocks of the protagonist. The hostility shown at the beginning is reflected in equal measure by this handsome yet slightly intimidating animal; but we witness the healing process of him becoming more gentle and more open, so the horse embraces these behaviours. Any moment in The Healer which involves comparative editing between boy and horse is so inherently emotional, and cinematically dynamic, that it elevates what could be a relatively conventional story of trauma to an expertly crafted tale of what it means to relate to the things around you. It’s a true testament to director William Jewell, producer Lee Mancini, and the rest of the crew that these images of an animal can end up signifying so much so clearly.