By Zoe Turner
Siri Rodnes’ surreal exploration of a child’s struggle with her deteriorating health is a playful and touching short film. Its viewer follows the girl, as she escapes from her condition into a world of make-believe.
During these fantasies of hers, the girl follows a big bad wolf type character who she is determined to one day defeat. These episodes of the girl’s imagination are delivered surprisingly well for rising talent with a lower budget, with carefully timed sound effects and lighting to create a mood of suspense. Her mother leaves her to keep inventing, whilst she goes to hospital to talk to someone about developments in her daughter’s treatment.
While her mother is away, the girl encounters her neighbour, a young man who is hiding from his father and chooses to slip through the window of her house. His visit sparks a friendship which revolves around clothing; the boy comments on the girl’s “gorgeous” dress, and he starts trying on her mother’s clothes for himself. This is assumed by the audience to be the reason the boy has been chased out of his own home, and so the film starts to reveal itself as a representation of young minorities.
When her mother returns with a wheelchair, the girl is distraught due to the seeming demoralisation. It is after this trigger that the girl finally braves the wolf in her imagination, chasing it until she reaches an imitation of her own bedroom. Through the window of this bedroom, she can see her real one, her mother sitting where she would usually sit, seemingly mourning her daughter.
Just as the viewer takes this to be an upsetting loss for the girl against the big, bad wolf, her illness, the scene switches to the girl recovering in a hospital bed, her mother reading back her own stories to her. We immediately experience a rush of relief and warmth, as we are reminded of the strength any young person battling against a perceived weakness carries inside them.
While the film might lack an entirely effective script, the cast work well with what they have been given, and the story is certainly an inventive interpretation of an individual’s unique issues that are all to be acknowledged.
Featured image and gallery: Hoang Phan Notebooks were carried from one workshop to another. Writers from different generations sat around tables, sharing manuscripts and listening to each other. Outdoors, small groups strolled along Oxford Road, pausing before buildings steeped in literary history. This was the scene during the Manchester Writing School Summer Festival 2026, held…
Featured image: Katja Ogrin With many sore heads and limbs this morning after the most hardcore day of the festival taking place yesterday, many are recovering from the moshing and pit brutality of the previous day’s antics. As the tradition of a morning movie in the Serpents Lair prevails, the crowd sprawls out onto the plush,…
Featured image: Abbi Draper After an electrifying start to the weekend, with temperatures slowly climbing, many lather themselves in suncream, shed their band shirts and rise from their tents to trek towards the arena. Saturday has big things incoming for the humans of Bloodstock 2026. Some pace themselves for the day and hide from the early…
Featured image: Abbi Draper After a memorable Thursday opener, Bloodstock 2026 opens its gates once again onto the Hallowed Grounds of Catton Park, kicking off day two of its 25th-anniversary celebration of metal. As the sun rises on Catton Park, festivalgoers emerge from their tents to prepare for another day of mayhem. The morning brings…
Leave a reply