A beautiful film about a mother and her two children, one of the most beautiful subjects to experience on film. As Anna (Claudia Ferri) wakes up, she starts playing with her two kids, Claire (Milan Cote Drean) and Mathis (Jaz Cote Drean). The first few minutes are heartwarming as Anna plays around with her children for a bit and gets them ready for school. The kids have fun on the car trip to school, and their mother is all smiles until she notices something different. That’s when things change in a rather disturbing matter. Disturbing as in Claire dying.
A funeral is held for little Claire complete with a choir of little kids which makes things even sadder. While Anna is crying about her loss, Mathis on the other hand doesn’t seem to notice his sister is even gone, not even shedding a tear. Anna gets worried that Mathis still plays as if nothing ever happened, even saying that Claire is still around. Out of nowhere Anna sees Claire again, only to realize her mind is playing tricks on her. Mathis keeps protesting that he sees Claire but his mother doesn’t believe him. So Anna goes to see if her mysterious presence really is in the house. She sees nothing and gets even more miserable, and then one wonders if she’ll ever snap back into reality.
For a film that starts out somewhat happy, it turned dark pretty quickly. One can sort of tell by the sad soundtrack that plays throughout the movie, but the layout is most disturbing. The shots are artistic and fascinating. I’m a huge fan of films like this, so I really enjoyed the intensity of the mood. The original music was pretty, and added with the skillful editing and the grayscale of the colour, made this a beautifully made artistic film, even if it was dark and disturbing.
(Photo Courtesy Chicart Productions)