Jason is a lawyer who has taken on a dangerous client. As he stares into his bathroom mirror, shaving, his reflection comes to life having seen multiple versions of the future, wanting to make sure that Jason does the right thing.
Sitting down in my seat at the screening, I didn’t know what to expect from the film I was about to see. As the room went dark, we were greeted with a colourless room on screen and invited into the life or possible lives of Jason. With films that delve into parallel universes and dream states like The Matrix and Inception, it can take a film an hour to get the audience into a position where they are understanding of the inner workings of the world so that they can immerse themselves in the film. This short however grabbed us from the moment it started, letting us lose ourselves in this infinite corridor of reflections and possibilities and never once left me feeling confused or out of place.
Michael Socha stars as Jason and his performances were slick and emotional. Playing both a lawyer and his reflection, to be the same character but in two different minds takes great skill and he perfectly achieves this. It’s funny because both of his characters were so compelling that it was hard for us as an audience to choose a side to be on, but I guess that amplifies this idea that we can like ourselves but also feel frightened by our gut feelings.
Edicius challenged my way of thinking, grounding the story with this idea that our intuition knows best, but it can be hard to always trust it. The incredible mind behind the film is Uzo Oleh who wrote and directed it, and as the credits rolled, I was left in awe of the full story we had just seen, yet the craving to see more. It feels mean to call this film a short when it felt so much like a feature. I could’ve watched for longer if it had been there, yet it produced an incredible satisfaction that in its short runtime it was able to do what so many bigger productions fail to achieve with an audience. Oleh’s idea is immense, with his writing strong and to the point. I could see myself in the themes in the film. I was on the edge of my seat, and even spilt some of my drink. His talent to put everything into this runtime blows my mind, and I need to see it again.
Each element of this film is highly crafted and thought out, from the original score to the clever camera work of DOP Tristan Chenais, it’ll definitely make me see my reflection differently.