Winner of Best Film, Best Directing, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and Audience Choice at the 2023 Shanghai 48 Hour Film Project, “Detaching” is a 7-minutes sci-fi short which attempts to comment on a number of issues revolving around technology.
“Detaching” review is part of the Submit Your Film Initiative
The film begins in dreamy fashion, with a man and a woman coming together in an idyllic setting, before another man comes making a warning that suggests the whole ting was part of a virtual game. The scene then changes to the aforementioned woman's actual life, before turning to the game once more, where the exact thing happens, with the previous man cautioning her once more, that she has spent too much time in the game. The more her life seems to be stuck, the more the woman gets hooked in the game, with her attitude evidently being one of addiction. The dialogues between the player and the AI that cautions her continue in more intense terms.
Nicholas Z. Scott and Jud Wilmont direct a very ambitious short, which aims at making comments about loss and grief, addiction and the concept of the AI, in a way that all of them are connected with each other. And although the approach in that regard is epidermal, expectedly considering the duration of the short, it is also easy to say that their goal is a success, with everything being presented through the minimalist approach of the movie.
Furthermore, the SFX work well, as does the repetitive nature of the short, which actually leads to a very interesting finale. In that regard, Danniel Ni and Anastasia Khvette's editing emerges as one of the best aspects of the movie, in the way these sequences succeed each other and are combined in order to present a compact story.
Gao Lipei as the protagonist is quite convincing in the way she presents her deteriorating mental status and the way she defends herself towards the AI, in another of the movie's traits.
“Detaching” is an interesting short, which manages to make the most of its economical approach. It will be interesting to see what the two directors could do with a bigger budget in their hands.
