Omeleto | WEAPONS AND THEIR NAMES | Omeleto @Omeleto | Uploaded May 2024 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
A teenager shoots guns with her best friend.
WEAPONS AND THEIR NAMES is used with permission from Melina Valdez. Learn more at https://melinavaldez.com.
Luciana is the teenage daughter of an immigrant mother and an American stepfather. After her stepfather's death, Luciana struggles to connect with her grieving mother and feels emotionally stuck. Instead, she spends much of her time with her best friend Mickey to fill the void.
When Mickey sneaks off to shoot guns with her boyfriend, Luciana tags along. Luciana feels awkward at first, but she proves to be surprisingly deft at shooting. It was something she did with her stepfather, and it brings back memories of her time with him, leading to a strange moment of grace -- and allowing herself the freedom to feel what she needs.
Directed by Melina Valdez, this Sundance-selected short drama is a study in contrasts. Luciana's restless experimentation with identities, friendships and boundaries makes for a poignant coming-of-age story, but it's woven with a more grown-up, weighty portrait of grief's often wayward path. Rendered with warm, weathered 16mm cinematography that captures the worn-in tropical moodiness of rural Florida, the result is a unique fever dream of a narrative, one as surprising and fascinating as its milieu and protagonist.
There's a sensuous, languid quality infused throughout the film, both in the images and in the pacing. The thoughtful writing charts Luciana's world, from her responsibility for her little brother to her more strained one with her depressed, grief-stricken mother. Amid the oppressiveness of her home life, adventures with her best friend sound more exciting.
"Dutiful good girl led astray by a more adventurous, devil-may-care friend" is a classic teen dynamic, but the story develops in unexpected directions, more interested in Luciana's reactions, thoughts and feelings than in playing out teenage rebellion. As Luciana sneaks off with Mickey and her boyfriend, the guns they shoot seem to unlock an unconscious series of memories. Luciana is deft in their handling, revealing that her stepfather taught her how to use them -- and the memory of that relationship is evoked now.
Actor Cecilia Rene as Luciana is effective in portraying how grief has walled her off from her loved ones, and from life itself. Yet as she wanders off from where her friend and her boyfriend are shooting, she finds a release from that grief from an unexpectedly magical event, and she finally is freed from that inner sense of separation.
Unpredictable, palpable and strangely dreamy, WEAPONS AND THEIR NAMES has its moments of dark portent that, combined with its matter-of-fact portrayal of gun culture in Florida, could lead viewers to anticipate a story about violence. But this is Luciana's story, one where the typical patterns of life have been interrupted by grief and sorrow. When she finally finds her way out of the labyrinth of loneliness and isolation through an unexpected conduit, she finds nothing much has changed in her life. But she has changed, and it makes all the difference.
A teenager shoots guns with her best friend.
WEAPONS AND THEIR NAMES is used with permission from Melina Valdez. Learn more at https://melinavaldez.com.
Luciana is the teenage daughter of an immigrant mother and an American stepfather. After her stepfather's death, Luciana struggles to connect with her grieving mother and feels emotionally stuck. Instead, she spends much of her time with her best friend Mickey to fill the void.
When Mickey sneaks off to shoot guns with her boyfriend, Luciana tags along. Luciana feels awkward at first, but she proves to be surprisingly deft at shooting. It was something she did with her stepfather, and it brings back memories of her time with him, leading to a strange moment of grace -- and allowing herself the freedom to feel what she needs.
Directed by Melina Valdez, this Sundance-selected short drama is a study in contrasts. Luciana's restless experimentation with identities, friendships and boundaries makes for a poignant coming-of-age story, but it's woven with a more grown-up, weighty portrait of grief's often wayward path. Rendered with warm, weathered 16mm cinematography that captures the worn-in tropical moodiness of rural Florida, the result is a unique fever dream of a narrative, one as surprising and fascinating as its milieu and protagonist.
There's a sensuous, languid quality infused throughout the film, both in the images and in the pacing. The thoughtful writing charts Luciana's world, from her responsibility for her little brother to her more strained one with her depressed, grief-stricken mother. Amid the oppressiveness of her home life, adventures with her best friend sound more exciting.
"Dutiful good girl led astray by a more adventurous, devil-may-care friend" is a classic teen dynamic, but the story develops in unexpected directions, more interested in Luciana's reactions, thoughts and feelings than in playing out teenage rebellion. As Luciana sneaks off with Mickey and her boyfriend, the guns they shoot seem to unlock an unconscious series of memories. Luciana is deft in their handling, revealing that her stepfather taught her how to use them -- and the memory of that relationship is evoked now.
Actor Cecilia Rene as Luciana is effective in portraying how grief has walled her off from her loved ones, and from life itself. Yet as she wanders off from where her friend and her boyfriend are shooting, she finds a release from that grief from an unexpectedly magical event, and she finally is freed from that inner sense of separation.
Unpredictable, palpable and strangely dreamy, WEAPONS AND THEIR NAMES has its moments of dark portent that, combined with its matter-of-fact portrayal of gun culture in Florida, could lead viewers to anticipate a story about violence. But this is Luciana's story, one where the typical patterns of life have been interrupted by grief and sorrow. When she finally finds her way out of the labyrinth of loneliness and isolation through an unexpected conduit, she finds nothing much has changed in her life. But she has changed, and it makes all the difference.
