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Bucharest ShortCut Cinefest

FILM REVIEW

'The Talk'
- Directed by Jay Bhatti -
The Talk.jpg

Excellently shot, this short has excellent cinematography and expressive lighting that slowly but firmly contours an eerie atmosphere. The setting is ideal, soundproof, gloomy, and the humidity is high. A single source of artificial light seems to reveal who the protagonist of this story is because they are the only ones that matter and the attention should go mainly to them.

 

The very first frames succeed in arousing curiosity regarding the situation of the two characters. The audience is thrown right in the middle of the action, and the dialogue manages to keep it engaged until the very end. Moreover, the presence of the green color affects us physically and mentally in several different ways. Too much green can cause people to become placid, lazy, slow, moody, depressed, and lethargic, or even the feelings of apathy and rejection. Despite only running for almost precisely fifteen minutes, this highly successful short film coming from Jay Bhatti accomplishes more in that short time than other feature film sequences in a more significant period of time and with a bigger budget. Its storytelling is purposefully subtle, yet it still materializes the right amount of subtext needed to comprehend our subject's situation fully.

 

In editing terms, this short film is very flowy. Every change of frame comes naturally, as we are really in the middle of the discussion and consistently deliver the other interlocutor's angle as we wish. We may say that dialogue sequences are the most demanding and challenging to work on because they can be easily spotted if the editing is not smooth enough. But here, all this short film feels perfect on a technical note, and the rhythm is on point. The masterful editing cuts the public's clear mind with surgical precision by serving confusion and curiosity instead of eventually delivering an unpredictable twist of the story to the film fans' feast.

 

This short was elegantly crafted, always highlighting the most important parts of each moment of the discussion.

Furthermore, the music score fits unique to the short film that unfolds under our eyes. The dialogue, the sound effects, the layers of music, everything is well mixed. That's a feature that is primarily appreciated in the festival when it comes to screening the films. It gives the movie a wholesome perspective and a new key to interpretation, being a complex project from various points of view.

 

We appreciate the thoroughness put into preparing, producing, and finalizing this project. It is well thought and structured from start to end. Applying the fundamental ethos of "keep it simple" across the board, a mantra echoes throughout all production areas, the crew reached to make a simple yet powerful piece of storytelling. The coherence of the fictional universe that outlines some strong protagonists and the talent of the actors who manage to create such believable characters, The Talk is a truly magnificent and excellent piece of film, an experience impossible to ignore and extremely hard to forget.

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