“YOU” is an experimental film about the emotional roller-coaster of a man who is in love.

 

This short is a visual poem, a composition made of romantic voice-over, symbolic imagery, dance, and music. A man’s voice narrates a declaration of love that puts together descriptions of moods, feeling, memories and future wishes. Love seems to cure the impact of traumatic memories for the author. His abandonment and loneliness fade at the thought of his beloved one. The intense emotions of love are illustrated through a passionate dance between a man and a woman, but choreographic moments are mixed with images of nature or of the city.

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The two dancers give a forceful performance, maybe a tad overripe at times. But the natural lighting and camera movement don’t help to visually enhance their artistic effort. The rhythm of the camera movement is not complementing the dance. The camera needs to anticipate the motion in order to be able to display the most intense choreographic moments at their best – a technique achievable with a lot of rehearsing and a stricter shooting script.

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Otherwise, the cinematography is dynamic and qualitative and the editing is creative, managing to create a syncopated rhythm to fit the text. The sound design well mixes the voice over, music and diegetic sounds of the locations, making them sound like an experimental song.

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The text is authentic but mixes fresh ideas and interesting views on life with a cliche depiction of love, with descriptions of memories that remind of stock photography with couples. The same  observation fits the selected imagery, a lot of hand touching, light flare, hair ruffled by the wind, sunset, and sea,  which usually constitute the basic kit of seasonal music videos. A more personal touch would have been preferable to overused visual language.

 

All things considered, “YOU” is a contemplative and deeply humanistic film which keeps the viewer engaged with its dramatic atmosphere. We appreciate the choice of experimenting with cinematic devices and trying forms of a structure different from narrative cinema, but we suggest  an original approach in the visual content for the film and in the presented ideas.