“There is no education like adversity” – Benjamin Disraeli. The 8 shorts (90 minutes) in the Love Hurts selection examines a certain group of people faced with some sort of tragedy and/or mishap in their life. We watch these individuals react and deal with grueling uncalled for situations, and how they learn more about themselves, others and the situations they are in. The trick is to master the art of not letting such situations weigh you down.
A stop-motion animation, Life and Stuff , by Kumar Satkunarasa very literally delivers this in 4 minutes and its a very real reflection of how a man consistently ponders over the past and keeps regretting! There’s a real lesson-learner here!
Under (23 minutes) is a Canadian production by Mark Raso and is a story about Sydney and her fiancee’ Tom taking a winter retreat at a remote cabin in order to try and navigate through a low point in their relationship. On their somewhat argumentative journey they face a close call car accident and are forced to camp out in the snow until help arrives. However, unforeseen turn of events put the couple’s love for each other to test – Will they manage to come out victorious? It’s amazing to see how when two people, any two people are isolated, how automatically compelled they are to work through their issues. This is a beautiful story about love, loss and found.
Keeping current with what just happened in our city last weekend at the Eaton Centre, Tuesday (7minutes), a Canadian production by Chloe Robichaud, was a bitter reminder of how one loose canon can upset so many lives all at once. This is the story of of a group of university students who bunk a day of classes just to kickback, relax and have some fun when they get a disturbing phone call from one of their friends. Friendships are put to test as this short captures the movement, response and emotional reactions of individuals who receive news that’s totally uncalled for.
Recently, during one of their performances for their comeback tour after 7 years of hiatus, Shirley Manson from the band Garbage stopped a concert midway when she saw a man hit a woman in the audience. It is not okay to hit a woman no matter what the reason! Sadly, domestic violence of all shapes and form against women is still prevalent in the world today. Ross McDonnell’s Remember Me My Ghost (17 minutes) is an Irish production that addresses this issue and presents the story of a woman’s constant struggle with an abusive husband while she is trying to raise three kids with him. The video shown is a black and white footage of a bad neighbourhood in Dublin which serves a befitting background to the grim subject of wife abuse. The story is narrated from the anonymous, abused partner’s point of view and although you can’t help but sympathize with her it also angered me to question her for putting up with it. No matter the explanations given by the narrator, one’s instant reaction is to believe that there is always a choice! At the end of the day however the choice to outlive fear, move on from past mistakes and to keep loving is one that needs to be made.
I hope I have not painted a dull and depressing picture of this theme as more important than the tragedies with lessons of positivity, looking ahead, overcoming fears and inhibitions and to instill love in your soul as that is what you ultimately project onto others. The theme is nicely packaged with a couple of takes on mishaps presented in a comedic way. One of those is Todd Strauss-Schulson’s The Master Cleanse (15 minutes), a story about a couple that goes on a specific juice diet for 10 days to clean out their systems and eventually their relationship too! It’s hilarious to see the bubble building up during the course of the 10 days and how lack of proper nourishment can serve as a natural lie detector! Gloves come off and the bitter truth comes out!
If you haven’t already checked it out, Love Hurts repeats on Friday, June 8, 9:15 PM at the Isabel Bader Theatre.
- Myra Rehman
T: @myrawales F:www.facebook.com/myrarehman
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