It's really hard to explain this little 10 minute film.
For reasons that are unclear, "Jeremiah" is sitting on a bench on the side of a football field. He looks like he's seen a ghost. It seems that Jeremiah is a football player (in high school? In college?) and the coach insulted him or said something derogatory. Along comes fellow football player Michael who checks in Jeremiah. They have a brief conversation about the coach and Michael gives Jeremiah a pep talk. Michael walks off and Jeremiah sees a figure in the distance with a mask. It looked like a Japanese mask to me, a scary sad face.
This is the first part of the story. Then we see Jeremiah walking home, his face filled with fear. As soon as he gets in, he texts Michael and asks him to come over because he "has" to talk to him -- but then apparently he needs 15 minutes to "get ready." This doesn't make any sense at all. None.
So, Jeremiah takes a bath. We see that he has shoulder length hair. And his face is still filled with fear.
Michael comes over and Jeremiah tells him some story from his childhood about a lonely, angry man becoming a monster. This is his fear. Michael asks the one intelligent question in this movie, "Why are you telling me this?" Afterwards, Jeremiah stares at him for a minute... and the strange masked man suddenly comes into his point of view. Jeremiah grabs Michael and kisses him.
In that one moment, there was a lot of pain and beauty, because most gay men of a certain age will know that moment well. Michael (fortunately) comforts Jeremiah. Whether Michael is gay is not known; what is known is that he gets how scared Jeremiah is and he comforts him; this moment is powerful, because it could have easily gone the other way. We leave the scene with Michael comforting Jeremiah, but then we cut to an exterior shot where the "masked" figure stares back at Jeremiah's house.
So, yes, that scary figure may hover nearby throughout Jeremiah's life, or, the more Jeremiah loves and is confident... the masked figure may disappear.
This particular element might have been worth a film for, but this 10-minute project inexplicably adds a "football" side story without explaining why the coach was upset and what it is that happened and/or was said. We can assume, I guess, that the coach called Jeremiah a derogatory term having to do with gay people. But... that's all we can do is guess.
The story relies on a text message in the middle of it which achieved nothing. If Jeremiah really needed to talk to Michael, he should have gone over his house and done so. That moment of tension, that "coming out" moment -- it could have been achieved without the "football" set-up.
Also, the lead player and his buddy could have been any race. The name "Jeremiah" seems an odd name for the movie and I'd love to know why the filmmaker chose it.
It's fairly well made, with only two characters, and the music keeps hinting at something tragic or horrible, but the text message exchange in the middle of the film completely knocked the wind out of film's sails and I think it could have been so much better. But, an interesting effort, even if it was confusing on many levels.
For reasons that are unclear, "Jeremiah" is sitting on a bench on the side of a football field. He looks like he's seen a ghost. It seems that Jeremiah is a football player (in high school? In college?) and the coach insulted him or said something derogatory. Along comes fellow football player Michael who checks in Jeremiah. They have a brief conversation about the coach and Michael gives Jeremiah a pep talk. Michael walks off and Jeremiah sees a figure in the distance with a mask. It looked like a Japanese mask to me, a scary sad face.
This is the first part of the story. Then we see Jeremiah walking home, his face filled with fear. As soon as he gets in, he texts Michael and asks him to come over because he "has" to talk to him -- but then apparently he needs 15 minutes to "get ready." This doesn't make any sense at all. None.
So, Jeremiah takes a bath. We see that he has shoulder length hair. And his face is still filled with fear.
Michael comes over and Jeremiah tells him some story from his childhood about a lonely, angry man becoming a monster. This is his fear. Michael asks the one intelligent question in this movie, "Why are you telling me this?" Afterwards, Jeremiah stares at him for a minute... and the strange masked man suddenly comes into his point of view. Jeremiah grabs Michael and kisses him.
In that one moment, there was a lot of pain and beauty, because most gay men of a certain age will know that moment well. Michael (fortunately) comforts Jeremiah. Whether Michael is gay is not known; what is known is that he gets how scared Jeremiah is and he comforts him; this moment is powerful, because it could have easily gone the other way. We leave the scene with Michael comforting Jeremiah, but then we cut to an exterior shot where the "masked" figure stares back at Jeremiah's house.
So, yes, that scary figure may hover nearby throughout Jeremiah's life, or, the more Jeremiah loves and is confident... the masked figure may disappear.
This particular element might have been worth a film for, but this 10-minute project inexplicably adds a "football" side story without explaining why the coach was upset and what it is that happened and/or was said. We can assume, I guess, that the coach called Jeremiah a derogatory term having to do with gay people. But... that's all we can do is guess.
The story relies on a text message in the middle of it which achieved nothing. If Jeremiah really needed to talk to Michael, he should have gone over his house and done so. That moment of tension, that "coming out" moment -- it could have been achieved without the "football" set-up.
Also, the lead player and his buddy could have been any race. The name "Jeremiah" seems an odd name for the movie and I'd love to know why the filmmaker chose it.
It's fairly well made, with only two characters, and the music keeps hinting at something tragic or horrible, but the text message exchange in the middle of the film completely knocked the wind out of film's sails and I think it could have been so much better. But, an interesting effort, even if it was confusing on many levels.
