Perhaps I am late to this realization, but with short films, it is much easier to find out the intent of the filmmaker(s) since there is not too much to worry about plot wise.
Such was the case with two new short films I saw by Chris Paicely and Miles August (“Chris and Miles”): Silk (directed by August) and The Girl in the Street (directed by Paicely), both of which each of them wrote.
Silk has a very similar structure to last year’s The Substance with Demi Moore. Here, a young woman named Anya (Ava Gong) is yearning not just for beauty, but appreciation and acceptance, with negative results (as shown with a phone call that ends rather sadly). After seeing an infomercial for an unnamed product (or maybe I just missed the name), she ends up getting much more than she bargained for.
The Girl in the Street is clear in its theme of what it means to actually help someone. After accepting a new job in a new town, Malachi (Shawn Roundtree Jr.) notices a distraught woman in the street. His dilemma is what we all encounter deep down in situations like this: It’s not that he doesn’t want to help, but he doubts if he should. The results are….well, not the most ideal.
If pressed, I would say I prefer The Girl in the Street over Silk. Both are done with the right amount of style and grit, but the revelation at the end of Silk was a bit too out of left field for me (even if it makes sense given the film’s title). While both films are rather ambiguous, The Girl in the Street is the one I thought more about after the credits rolled (it felt like it had more meat left on the bone).
Parents, none of these two are rated, but I would bet a shiny nickel they would be in the R range. There is no real sexual content, and while there may be some swearing, it is the grizzly imagery and visual content that makes this not suitable for anyone over middle school age.
Recently, I was fortunate enough to get a chance to visit the Criterion Closet (which should be on the bucket list of any cinephile). One of my picks was a collection of films by Albert Lamorisse, who did a handful of super charming short films (most notably The Red Balloon). I’m not going to be cute and say that Chris and Miles are on the same level as Lamorisse, but they do know the tone and style in which they work best in, giving them space to spread their wings.
Here is hoping they get a chance to spread those wings more so in feature length films.
Overall:
Silk
The Girl in the Street
Nothing else to say 