Director: David O'Reilly
Hit or Miss: Miss
All I can really say about "Please Say Something" is that it is definitely interesting. "Interesting" when applied to films generally either means either of the following choices: Good interesting or Bad interesting. In this case, it was a little bit of both, but when it comes down to it personally, it's more of a miss for me.
"Please Say Something" is a story about a couple-a cat and a mouse-who are experiencing a little turbulence in their relationship. They aren't really "getting" each other, specifically the mouse, who is oblivious to his partner the cat's feelings. Throughout the short, the cat is trying to get the mouse to understand her feelings but he is too busy writing. Although I do appreciate the interesting exploration into a common problem faced in relationships, the film as a whole just didn't work as well as I had hoped. It's depressing, it's jumbled, it's a little bit of a "headache" to be honest.
Although I don't typically mind nonlinear storytelling, this was just still a bit too hard to follow in some spaces for me. I like to think and I like being able to have the opportunity to try to piece things together as a viewer so I do appreciate the way the filmmaker is trying to get the audience involved in that aspect. But altogether, it really is just a bit too confusing. When you think there's going to be some explanation into a character's decision or why they said something, it's just brushed aside with some random test pattern screens, which although is "stylishly" unique to some degree, is just a little bit annoying to be honest. Instead of resolving and clarifying, the filmmakers just try to use this abstract imagery and "randomness" as a way to look creative without really giving a real clearer understanding of what's going on.
Overall, I felt sympathy for my characters. I understood what the cat was going through and why she felt left out. I liked that even though these characters were speaking a made up language, I could really get what they were going through (perhaps that was due to the helpful use of subtitles) but I still feel like despite the emotions and strong themes present, I feel like the film was overpowered by the filmmaker's decision to use their random abstract style that unfortunately left me more confused and annoyed, feeling as if the style was a lazy cop out and a bit pretentious to look "cool" and insert randomness to add more "Style" while seriously lacking substance and clarification.
Hit or Miss: Miss.
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