Literary.NonFiction

This past week was the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and among the shorts that played was a film by Barry Jenkins (director of Medicine for Melancholy ) called Tall Enough, commissioned by Bloomingdale’s.

and a bit of director’s commentary about the film:

Now there are two things about this film that I really like (in addition to it being quite stunning to look at). Compare it, for example, with this ad for Ralph Lauren. Very similar stylistically - similar mood, aestetic, color palette, etc. - but everyone is, well white.

And Jenkins talks about how this was an intentional conceit; his initial inspiration for the film was a Bloomingdale’s ad of two white people in the same pose. What’s different though is how understated his approach to it is. The characters are simply who they are; their ethnicity is just another fact their characters.

The other aspect of this film that I really like is the way in which he approaches the narrative as an extract of a moment rather than trying to cram a story arc into a couple of minutes. I appreciate the way in which you get such a deep impression of who these people are out of the sparse dialog and the look in their eyes.

Definitely a filmmaker to look out for in the future.