Form the film's introduction. “Inter-faith marriages are a result of a secret revolution- a Love-Jihad! Men lure women into religious conversions on the pretext of love marriage. Such beliefs have led to hate crimes and mob lynching for the sake of upholding one's propaganda. Such polarization of the society had led to fear and unrest in the secular spirit. One's “right to life” must not be forgotten, yet there had been attempts to legitimize this act of control and subjugation. Such, times generate nightmares for the waking, thinking mind. What if, the persecution becomes systematic like that of a tyrant or a dictator. “Dose” explores the dark abyss to find a streak of light. No matter how faint that might be.”
“Dose” review is part of the Submit Your Film Initiative
In this rather experimental, 5-minute short, Souvik Chakraborty tries to comment on the way the system, as implemented by leaders who are essentially dictators, place continuous obstacles to the people's “right to life”, with the concept of love being the one taking the most significant toll. Through an iconoclastic, minimalistic approach that has the film essentially taking place within a basin of sorts, the combination of image with a digitized voice presents the director's comments, which need, though, the aforementioned introduction in order to make truly sense.
As such, realizing the metaphors emerges as a rather important factor for anyone to understand the movie. The half-eaten apple with the silver hearts in it highlights the fact that the system treats love as a parasite, in probably the most impactful sequence of the short, also because the optical antithesis of the hearts with the almost fuchsia basin and the apple is quite powerful.
The next sequences resemble ones of “cutting” drugs, with Chakraborty connecting the aforementioned comment with the pandemic measures, stating that the governments use these rules in order to restrict the right to life and love, even more. The short closes with on-screen text, that refers, among others, to how Hitler passed the Nuremberg laws which banned German people from marrying a Jews, reminding that the result of laws as such was the Holocaust.
“Dose” is a very interesting short, with the combination of extremely colored images and a powerful message working quite well for it. At the same time, however, the fact that it definitely needs an introduction in order for anyone to understand what it is about, along with its overall aesthetics, deem it a work that is better classified as video art than a movie.
