WATCH THE TRAILER HERE
First, the Recap:
What we have and what we’ve lost. Throughout our lives, we will encounter the inevitability that certain people, events, places, possessions will enter and exit our actuality. While as human beings it seems evident we wish to hold onto every single precious instant and/or tangible element we connect with or to, it is only the natural course of life that can show how often so much of what we gain is fleeting, leaving only the memory that we can hope to treasure. It is such sequences and strings of recollections that are experienced by a now-former couple Alex (Marcelo Gonzalez) and Sophia (Bailey Colors), viewing in their minds what they valued between them, good and bad, during an all-too-evanescent romance.
Next, my Mind:
Executed through a highly grounded, tangibly realistic, undeniably empathetic, deeply truthful lens, this 8-minute short film effort from writer/director/producer/editor/composer Andres Ramirez takes on an entirely different direction and sense of beautifully overt poignancy compared to his other recent thriller-based project “Shutter“, doing so with an intentionality that showcases the level of purposeful diversity in thematic explorations the filmmaker is striving to achieve and prove proficient at creating. For this critic, it’s a sign of growing maturity as a filmmaker when they can showcase with effectiveness an ability to offer varying genres without losing the precision of their art and how they produce it, which has happened here with this film.
Told through the voiceover narration of its protagonists combined with wonderfully shot imagery that was made to appear as old style reel-to-reel film stock, the grainy texture of said visuals almost becomes a character in itself as the tale of two lovers spans moments they reflect on, the laments and joys of love and its myriad of phases as it relates to an ultimate separation due to circumstances unrevealed, echoing the magnitude of underlying tensions perhaps in their whirlwind affair. But what then provides the film with an emotionally charged core is that exact fact that we see how much the attraction was that they were living in, yet are then left to surmise what precisely it might have been that would cause it all to subsequently fall apart.
This then brings about the film’s overall foundational cornerstone, which is the sheer potency of memory and how much it can dominate, whether for good or ill, our ability to recall every iota of an impactful connection with someone, a bond that resonates to the soul, and is that much more hurtful when so abruptly parted when everything seems to be reaching its best points yet. I think that’s another admirable and so deftly believable aspect of this film’s story as well, that it presents the portrait of love in a totally practical and pragmatic way, so as not to see it as the perfect fairy tale we all wish it would be, but rather as the volatile but worthwhile pursuit it is, complete with the highs and lows accompanying it all, with the additional pains of trying to grapple with losing it.
How we can adapt the concept of the memories we grasp tightly onto AS frames in a movie, edited together chains of individual moments that defined who we were both as independent and interdependent entities in the scope of a relationship and everything it means to us when love is the primary driver guiding our steps and actions with each other, in this context especially. The film’s well-conceived intent portrays the absolute joys of pure happiness but also the resentments, anger, disappointments, and other hard feelings that can exist in the face of a separation by necessity we’re given to view, yet still left to ponder. Also, the music score is a magnificently emotive work of art that enhances that emotional quotient and stirs the heart as you watch the events unfold.
Gonzalez and Colors work in perfect tandem here through their roles as Alex and Sophia, two people so clearly having touched each other’s hearts through the relationship they once journeyed together in and suddenly had to face in its demise. Their verbalizations about all they felt adds an understanding and affecting urgency to the real-ness of what they shared, even as the images of times past that were filled with so much evident delight and exhilaration run through each of their thoughts like a movie, recounting each with both contentment and longing for what now cannot be. The volumes of grander emotions being conveyed through the body language and facial expressions alone provides an engaging portrait of what they’ve been a part of, and both Gonzalez and Colors play these characters with convincing sincerity that truly sells you on the couple’s joys and sorrows.
In total, “Frame” exquisitely delivers the calm and storm that is love–it’s significance, it’s substance, it’s fervency, it’s beauty, and the impact on the heart, mind, and soul through two people who’ve felt the flame kindle, blaze up, and then sadly burn out. The scope and profoundness love represents, here lost because of circumstance, it also illustrates how fragile it can be yet still maintain its tenacity to linger in the theater of our minds long after the source of it may have had to go their separate way. There are legitimate lessons to be learned here in only eight short minutes, and that is the ongoing wonder of what short film and independent film have to offer us.
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
