TIFF50: Best of Short Cuts 3 and 4

Short Cuts 3 and 4 are in the books! Short Cuts 3 offered one of the strongest lineups of the festival with standouts like Sea Star, Asparagus Bear and the star-studded The Non-Actor. Throughout both Short Cuts 3 and Short Cuts 4 a common through-line appeared in three shorts I have reviewed for these programs. Check out below as we review Dust to Dreams, What We Leave Behind and Ali - all stories about finding and using your voice.

Dust to Dreams, dir. Idris Elba

Idris Elba brings a strong voice to the director's chair in Dust to Dreams.  Dust to Dreams focuses on a family of sisters who run a legendary Lagos-based club passed down from their late father. There is a sense of sacredness to the club's stage, as artists have graced it for years. The story focuses much around the eldest sister Millicent (Milli for short) and the family dynamics with her sisters Comfort and Patience, her daughter Bisi and her past lover (and father to her daughter the “singing solider” Johnson, played by Seal. Miilli is sick and there is a lot of talk about whose hands the club will fall into if she passes and what will be done with it. There is a family legacy around the club and who will be the one to carry that legacy on.

Seal gives an outstanding and flawlessly reserved performance as the "singing soldier". It acts as the perfect counter-balance to the strong performances by Nse Ikpe-Etim, Eku Edewor and Constance Olatunde, as well as the lively and engaging music and dialogue. 

“Don’t let anyone steal your voice”

Not only is Dust to Dreams a short film about legacy, but also about making your voice known. This is shown both literally and figuratively, in Milli’s and Bisi’s lives. Bisi seems afraid to sing around people. Despite have a wonderful voice, anytime someone walks into the room she immediately stops. It is clear her goal is to be a singer one day, but something is holding her back from this dream. This is also shown figuratively after a heart rending event and a show of words of regret; words that should have been spoken sooner, that weren’t.

It’s no surprise that we get what everyone was hoping for with a short featuring Seal in a final performance with Bisi, showing there is healing power and celebration in music. Overall, Dust to Dreams shows the viewer that there is power in your voice, to make it heard and to not let time pass without telling those you love how you feel. 

Review by: Brandon MacMurray

What We Leave Behind, dirs. Jean-Sébastien Hamel, Alexandra Myotte

After premiering at Locarno, Jean-Sébastien Hamel and Alexandra Myotte bring their follow-up to last year's shortlisted A Crab in the Pool to North America with a premiere at TIFF. In What We Leave Behind, Hamel and Myotte continue to prove they are masters at creatively telling emotionally deep stories. 

Trauma has the ability to leave a void in your life, particularly when it occurs during such a formative time as childhood. What We Leave Behind takes this very idea and physically manifests it as a gaping wound in the neck of the main character Dan. 

Dan confronts his trauma as he is thrown back into the hockey arena where his inciting incident took place. Moments depicted by this short feel like a nightmare - it could perhaps be considered a horror. What We Leave Behind mixes haunting sound design (gasps for air, hollow beats, uneasy strings) with horror tropes like going down into a dark basement, the walls closing in or the ground falling out from beneath your feet. It even has a touch of what some may consider body horror. It’s a direction that makes complete sense, because isn’t that what trauma is sometimes? It's a personal horror story, someone’s worst nightmare. Dan’s individual horror is confronting the inner void that his childhood trauma left and finding his voice, all the while gasping for air to speak against it. 

What We Leave Behind has several memorable set pieces. I especially appreciated the switching perspectives. You would sometimes find yourself in a first person view of Dan, only to be launched out of it. The table hockey scene is a touch that works on multiple levels as Dan is beat up by his trauma in the form of a game that is often played by or with children. The locker scene sticks out as a climax of claustrophobia, the epitome of being trapped by your fears, as the coach's fingers wriggle through the slots of the locker door. This scene also brings a physical manifestation to the story of being silenced after trauma. 

Overall, What We Leave Behind is a harrowing depiction of trauma. It doesn’t offer a solution to the void trauma leaves, nor should it, as everyone's journey to facing their fears is different. However, it ends with hope and encouragement to face  personal pain and speak against deeply rooted darkness in your own life in order to eventually find healing. 

Review by: Brandon MacMurray

Ali, dir. Adnan Al Rajeev

Ali, directed by Bangladeshi film maker Adnan Al Rajeev, is a mesmerizing allegorical tale of repression of one’s true self. Ali is set in a coastal village where women are forbidden to sing. The opening moments offer a captivating visual you can’t take your eyes off: the camera focuses slowly on a face floating in the water. It feels like a picture torn right out of a Monet painting as the murky and muddled blues and greens are contrasted by the bright lillies bursting with pink and purple colour. This scene dramatically shifts to the completely opposite feeling - a needle graphically threads in and out of skin. Those who are more squeamish (like myself) might experience a visceral whiplash from first having your eyes glued to the beauty on the screen to suddenly needing to look away. 

As hard as it is to watch the sewing shut, it is a needed imagery to set up the heart of the short. The sharp transition from beauty to a needle tying together skin feels like a silencing of beauty. 

The story's plot centers around the main character, Ali, entering a singing competition. The chosen winner is then taken from the community to a new place beyond the mountains. It soon becomes clear that Ali is shackled, unable to be his true self. In a critical scene, Ali secretly sneaks away from the group to watch a woman sing on the TV. You can tell by the glow in his eyes that he is enamoured by the woman’s voice. However, his time is cut short when his mother notices his absence and finds him watching the TV. In a fit of rage she destroys the TV. It is an act that will be familiar to anyone who has been caught red-handed by their parents doing something they shouldn’t and is played out perfectly by both Al Amin and Indrani Soma. 

There is a lot of mystery left on the table about what this other community is beyond the mountains. This adds room for intrigue and leaves you craving a follow-up film, wondering where Ali's journey will take him. However, Ali still ends on a perfect note. The closing minutes powerfully shows what happens when you put out someone’s light and cover up their true selves with societal expectations. There is incredible beauty in being authentically yourself. You can try all you want to hide who someone is, but in the end, their true voice will shine and ring out. 

Review by: Brandon MacMurray