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Short Film Review: Veins – A Film on Evolution (2020) by Anirban Dutta

From the film's synopsis: Man is nature's child. Life is a metaphor to understand the greater space that we are all part of and to realise that one must be unhappy. His reasons of happiness may not come often, but when they come, they last for the nature embedded in him. They last for his world. The greatest happiness is in the beauty of nature. There is nothing like listening to a quail at half past two in the night and following her until five. There is nothing like staring at raindrops forever until they soak his glasses. Apart from nature whatever the rest exist today, they are for a mere period.

uses a rather experimental approach to make the aforementioned comments, which, however, would be quite difficult to understand without the synopsis given. The short is comprised of a series of vignettes that combine the movement of water, human hands and sounds that are the main source of the message each segment presents. Both the various forms of water, which include tears, running and dripping water, and the hands, are depicted through extreme close ups, with the outcome being impressive particularly in the moments where large quantities of the liquid are presented on screen.

As the film progresses, we hear various sounds of sorrow, particularly from people crying, with the sound of the flatline (probably in a hospital) providing the justification. However, and although the main sentiment that derives from the short is sadness, the moments of laughter and particularly those of the baby that concludes the movie, provide an optimistic note while concluding the circle of life, from death to birth.

There is much power in the combination of images and sound here and Dutta manages to evoke sentiment through this artful presentation. Particularly the use of sound in the film is of the highest level, even though some moments were a bit too loud. At the same time, however, the intensely experimental nature of the short and its duration (less than 10 minutes) deem it a spectacle very difficult to understand and subsequently, empathize with it, and in general, a piece of art that seems more suitable for a video installation/ art exhibition.

About the author

Panos Kotzathanasis

My name is Panos Kotzathanasis and I am Greek. Being a fan of Asian cinema and especially of Chinese kung fu and Japanese samurai movies since I was a little kid, I cultivated that love during my adolescence, to extend to the whole of SE Asia.

Starting from my own blog in Greek, I then moved on to write for some of the major publications in Greece, and in a number of websites dealing with (Asian) cinema, such as Taste of Cinema, Hancinema, EasternKicks, Chinese Policy Institute, and of course, Asian Movie Pulse. in which I still continue to contribute.

In the beginning of 2017, I launched my own website, Asian Film Vault, which I merged in 2018 with Asian Movie Pulse, creating the most complete website about the Asian movie industry, as it deals with almost every country from East and South Asia, and definitely all genres.

You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

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