“A woman, who has been in the shadow of her husband for years, one day rummages through her husband's things and tries to unravel his relationships. The more a woman pursues her husband's relationships, the more she moves away from her identity.”
“Who” review is part of the Submit Your Film Initiative
A dutiful wife faces a life changing realization that her husband may be cheating on her, all the while dealing with subsequent family drama through phone calls revealing a deep loss. A compelling drama that relies on audience intuition, “Who” is a short film whose strength lies in exploring both the strength and insecurity of the matriarch of a family. However, it is this strength born from an artistic spirit that brings a true sense of tragedy to the work.
Yüksel Memiş, who plays the motherly figure, dedication to her family and husband is apparent within her actions early in the short, made all the more pronounced due to a distant and distracted husband. This archetype is given an amount of poetic beauty in her own desire to write and share her journal with reflections of love, hatred and the human condition through published work. Consequently, this leads the film to a chilling tragic scene where she reads her work to the woman who is likely in an affair with her husband. Despite this knowledge, the woman delivers some rather insightful reflections on her own life through the elegantly worded script. Essentially, this wordplay in the face of a grim realization is an intriguing way to explore the hurt feelings of a distant husband and a life spent dedicated to family.
In order for this message to come across, much of the weight on production was put onto Memis who perfectly captures that pull between duty and emotion. Additionally, her reading of her work carries a sincerity that sells the idea of a troubled poet trying to represent her work. Ultimately, she captures both the strength and vulnerability of her character to benefit of the production.
Director Burak Kum has proven to have a strong eye for visuals in his previous short films in both “Absurd Man” and “Earth“, and while this production is more reserved to focus on story, his visual flair still comes across. Consequently, blocking and framing is handled in a way to compliment the dramatic interactions and the flow of the film is relaxed and quite serene.
Ultimately, “Who” is able to convey deep emotional struggles in an inventive and engrossing way and Burak Kum certainly feels like a talent worthy of attention with his ability to switch between genres while still keeping a style that feels familiar to his particular brand of filmmaking.
