Racism has many faces, but two of its roots are definitely misconception and the fear of the unknown. Nobuyuki Miyake directs a 17-minute short that highlights just the fact.
“Siren” is screening at Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh
Beginning in frantic pace and constant flashbacks that are interspersed with what is happening in the present, “Siren” unfolds like a thriller, as we watch a Middle Eastern man, Abbas, breaking into the apartment of an elderly man, wrestling with him while carrying a knife, and eventually picking him up. The scenes looks like a murder attempt, and the images, the violin music, the siren sounds, and the tension that derives from them add to this sense. As the flashbacks show, however, this is a whole other case, involving the false assumptions of an old man, which are intensified by the language obstacle, as the two protagonists do not speak each other's language, and the subsequent breaking of them by a man emerges as truly kind-hearted.
Both the comment regarding racism and xenophobia and the message regarding people coming together is quite well communicated here. However, Miyake goes a bit too far, both in the knife-holding “trick” and the reasons behind it and the actual ending, which essentially presents an unrealistic, romanticized version of the phenomenon.
Apart from this issue, however, the short thrives in its visual presentation, particularly in the “thriller” part, with Toshiharu Yaegashi's cinematography, particularly regarding the green tints that dominate the screen, the editing, and the music resulting in a series of rather agonizing sequences, that seem to move into exploitation territories. The ending, on the other hand, is rather lukewarm, and definitely on a lower lever than the initial scenes of the movie.
The late Masahiko Tsugawa plays the grumpy, racist, scared old man with gusto, essentially carrying the movie acting-wise, in what appears to be the last role of his life (he died in 2018).
Nobuyuki Miyake wanted to send a message against racism, but the truth is, considering the quality of the beginning, the short would work much better as a thriller, with the first part being essentially the one that deems the movie worthy of a watch.
