Omeleto | PANDA | Omeleto @Omeleto | Uploaded August 2024 | Updated October 2024, 13 hours ago.
A woman faces her estranged mother.
PANDA is used with permission from Sasha Briggs. Learn more at imdb.com/title/tt28753314.
Antonia is a chef working at a restaurant. On Antonia's 27th birthday, her estranged mother pays a surprise visit, startling her. She panics, taking refuge in the bathroom to take a moment for herself.
As she tries to pull herself together amid her boss's impatience, Antonia imagines the conversation she would have with her twin brother, Leonardo, who died ten years earlier. In her mind, Leo urges Antonia to talk to her mother. But it brings up long-buried feelings and resentments that Antonia must grapple with before confronting her parent.
Directed and written by Sasha Briggs, this sharp, poignant short family drama dramatizes the internal anguish and emotional complexity of a woman's psychological baggage, in the guise of a particularly painful imagined conversation. Antonia has likely been able to avoid dealing with her inner tumult through distance and work. But when her estranged mother appears at her restaurant, all Antonia has pushed away comes rushing at her.
The majority of the film's action takes place in the bathroom, where Antonia retreats in panic after sighting her mother. Antonia's anxiety is reflected in the film's style, which veers between an intimate chamber drama and more jagged, expressionistic moments that disrupt the flow of any naturalism with almost surreal details. In the bathroom, she is chided by her boss to get back to work, but eventually conjures an imaginary conversation with her twin brother, who died tragically ten years earlier.
The dialogue is rich and layered, evoking the strong, sometimes flinty bond of siblings, full of in-jokes and teasing. Though the conversation only exists for Antonio, it's presented as matter-of-fact, full of the quirkiness of real life. It also drills down to the heart of the matter, with Antonia coming to terms with not being the favored child and being treated differently by their mother, which also affects her relationship with Leo.
As the siblings, actors Sylvie Briggs and Tom Grant have a natural back-and-forth, with Briggs conveying a sense of the burden she's carried since Leo's death. Her feelings of ambivalence and inadequacy, already present before Leo died, have become entangled with the guilt she felt towards his death. It's all a tangled emotional knot, one that she's managed to distance herself from, until today.
As Antonia finally gives voice to her feelings and untangles her emotional baggage, PANDA becomes an honest and illuminating look at grief, and how complicated familial dynamics can sometimes only intensify in the case of a loved one's unexpected passing. There are no easy resolutions in the narrative. Instead, it's less about finding resolution than it is about summing up the courage to face problems and issues with someone. Antonia can no longer avoid the painful emotions and how they've shaped her relationships, but she can face them bravely with a sense of her truth.
A woman faces her estranged mother.
PANDA is used with permission from Sasha Briggs. Learn more at imdb.com/title/tt28753314.
Antonia is a chef working at a restaurant. On Antonia's 27th birthday, her estranged mother pays a surprise visit, startling her. She panics, taking refuge in the bathroom to take a moment for herself.
As she tries to pull herself together amid her boss's impatience, Antonia imagines the conversation she would have with her twin brother, Leonardo, who died ten years earlier. In her mind, Leo urges Antonia to talk to her mother. But it brings up long-buried feelings and resentments that Antonia must grapple with before confronting her parent.
Directed and written by Sasha Briggs, this sharp, poignant short family drama dramatizes the internal anguish and emotional complexity of a woman's psychological baggage, in the guise of a particularly painful imagined conversation. Antonia has likely been able to avoid dealing with her inner tumult through distance and work. But when her estranged mother appears at her restaurant, all Antonia has pushed away comes rushing at her.
The majority of the film's action takes place in the bathroom, where Antonia retreats in panic after sighting her mother. Antonia's anxiety is reflected in the film's style, which veers between an intimate chamber drama and more jagged, expressionistic moments that disrupt the flow of any naturalism with almost surreal details. In the bathroom, she is chided by her boss to get back to work, but eventually conjures an imaginary conversation with her twin brother, who died tragically ten years earlier.
The dialogue is rich and layered, evoking the strong, sometimes flinty bond of siblings, full of in-jokes and teasing. Though the conversation only exists for Antonio, it's presented as matter-of-fact, full of the quirkiness of real life. It also drills down to the heart of the matter, with Antonia coming to terms with not being the favored child and being treated differently by their mother, which also affects her relationship with Leo.
As the siblings, actors Sylvie Briggs and Tom Grant have a natural back-and-forth, with Briggs conveying a sense of the burden she's carried since Leo's death. Her feelings of ambivalence and inadequacy, already present before Leo died, have become entangled with the guilt she felt towards his death. It's all a tangled emotional knot, one that she's managed to distance herself from, until today.
As Antonia finally gives voice to her feelings and untangles her emotional baggage, PANDA becomes an honest and illuminating look at grief, and how complicated familial dynamics can sometimes only intensify in the case of a loved one's unexpected passing. There are no easy resolutions in the narrative. Instead, it's less about finding resolution than it is about summing up the courage to face problems and issues with someone. Antonia can no longer avoid the painful emotions and how they've shaped her relationships, but she can face them bravely with a sense of her truth.
