Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Absolute Oscar Shorts Winner --- Day 12/55

Walk: No!  Even grown men were grabbing onto something to stay standing in today's ferocious wind.                Plus it is cold. 

Distance: 0, yoga

Nawelle Ewad in Cyrus Neshvad's excellent short film The Red Suitcase







Stand back Alfred Hitchcock.  Another master of suspense was at work in the Best of the Oscar Nominated Shorts: Live Action.  His name: Iranian born, Luxembourg based director, Cyrus Neshvad.  His movie: The Red Suitcase.

At the start of this film the audience doesn't quite understand what is happening.  A young woman in a burka headscarf is reluctant to cross the bridge into the airport from the arrival area.  She keeps peering beyond but pulling back.  Eventually this catches the eyes of two security guards who ask to see her passport.  We then learn she doesn't speak a word of the language where she has landed and our knuckles tighten.  When the guards find a way to communicate with her, they grab for her suitcase.  She hugs it tight and our knuckles tighten even more.   From then on the audience white knuckles through nearly every breath this young woman takes as she thinks on her feet from moment to moment until the movie ends in a way that keeps the viewer engaged for days after.  At least if that viewer is Ciwt.

The Red Suitcase is a masterful, highly intelligent short movie on an ancient, important, universal topic by a passionately caring and skilled director. Ciwt has learned Neshvad is at work on his first full length movie, and she plans to be one of the first in the theater when it is released.    

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