This short film is an investigation into events that occurred at a high school some years prior. Uncovered through notes and comments in yearbooks collected at yard sales etc, a picture begins to emerge of a normal school where a change begins to occur.
The first thing for me to say here is that I really liked this short film, although part of me does so begrudgingly because I never appreciate a film that stands off and appears to aggressively refuse to help the viewer. The story here is that these "sinister events" unfold in a semi-told story but that we never really get to the bottom of the specifics. At the same time the delivery is one of ominous building and unnerving images from the school at the time – it is an effect that constantly suggests we are heading towards something big, something disturbing. Indeed it is this delivery that is the film strength and its undoing – because it is very good and very effective, I felt uncomfortable watching it but at the same time hooked to find out what happened.
This then backfires when the film doesn't really deliver the answer to the build-up and the annoyance at this can mask the point. The point to me is that the break-up of school spirit, the change in the students, the focus on self and the drop in moral is simply the result of students getting into final exams, with the reality of life getting close to them for one of the first times and then breaking up into a bigger and tougher world and becoming the first hints of the adults they will continue to grow into. It is a good twist and clever but unfortunately the effectiveness of the delivery and the lack of help in getting to this point means that it doesn't work and it doesn't help the viewer to understand.
I don't think the solution is to spell it out in big letters at the end of the film, but a little more in there at the end would have been useful. That said it is still a clever film with very good delivery – I just think it could have done with making the content a bit more accessible at the end considering how much of the delivery is suggesting something much more sinister to the viewer throughout.
The first thing for me to say here is that I really liked this short film, although part of me does so begrudgingly because I never appreciate a film that stands off and appears to aggressively refuse to help the viewer. The story here is that these "sinister events" unfold in a semi-told story but that we never really get to the bottom of the specifics. At the same time the delivery is one of ominous building and unnerving images from the school at the time – it is an effect that constantly suggests we are heading towards something big, something disturbing. Indeed it is this delivery that is the film strength and its undoing – because it is very good and very effective, I felt uncomfortable watching it but at the same time hooked to find out what happened.
This then backfires when the film doesn't really deliver the answer to the build-up and the annoyance at this can mask the point. The point to me is that the break-up of school spirit, the change in the students, the focus on self and the drop in moral is simply the result of students getting into final exams, with the reality of life getting close to them for one of the first times and then breaking up into a bigger and tougher world and becoming the first hints of the adults they will continue to grow into. It is a good twist and clever but unfortunately the effectiveness of the delivery and the lack of help in getting to this point means that it doesn't work and it doesn't help the viewer to understand.
I don't think the solution is to spell it out in big letters at the end of the film, but a little more in there at the end would have been useful. That said it is still a clever film with very good delivery – I just think it could have done with making the content a bit more accessible at the end considering how much of the delivery is suggesting something much more sinister to the viewer throughout.
