A recipient of SGIFF’s SEA-SHORTS Grant in 2020, and backed by a generous support from Angelina Jolie, International Rivers NGO, and numerous Indiegogo donors to “The River Snail” project,“Further and Further Away” world-premiered at this year’s Berlinale.
“Further and Further Away” is screening at Busan International Short Film Festival
A young indigenous Bunong woman and her brother are about to move to Phnom Penh, in order to search for a better life. The brother is excited but the girl seems to be reluctant. Before that, however, they decide to spend one last day in their rural village in northeastern Cambodia, which was lost due to the development of a nearby hydroelectric dam a few years earlier. Eventually, the sister starts roaming in the area.
Unfolding as a kind of tour guide in a village that essentially does not exist anymore, Polen Ly begins his film as a social drama, before he turns it into an oneiric trip into nature, filled with nostalgia and social comments. The most direct of those revolves around materialism, and how the concept of progress, particularly through the implementation of big construction, is harming nature, while uprooting people along with their cultures, essentially forcing them to move to the already crowded urban centers. Ly, however, does not seem to be exactly against this tactic, with the brother essentially highlighting the fact that progress frequently involves materialism, but instead, showing that its excess, can lead to a number of issues, with the sister representing those in the narrative.
The 24-minute short truly picks up when the sister starts roaming in the now flooded woods, with the film taking an an almost ritualistic essence that benefits the most by the excellent cinematography of Ly himself, and Kavich Neang‘s editing, which results in a leisure pace that totally mirrors the girl’s movements.
The scene where the girl is sleeping while the rain falls intensely emerges as one of the most memorable in the movie, also highlighting the great job done in the sound. The second one that stands out is the one where the sister comes to the brother who is sitting on top of a log in a savanna-like area, with both their feelings about the move being eloquently highlighted. This scene also showcases the acting and the chemistry the two protagonists share, with Bopha Oul as the Sister and Phanny Loem as the Brother giving naturalistic performances in the way they present their antithetical feelings, but also the connection they share.
“Further and Further Away” is a very well-shot short that manages to present its comments clearly while remaining beautiful throughout, in a style that will definitely appeal to European film festivals.
