In a world overly preoccupied with archiving even the smallest gestures, technology has already become a substitute for memory itself. Could this be the premise of a dystopia we are hurtling towards? But what Jesse Cook III is doing with his short film ‘LOOM‘ is less a dystopia than a meditation on the risk of losing ourselves to the gadgets that map the past. It’s a tragic love story with obsessive overtones, in which the director is more concerned with the psychological nuances involved in the almost uncontrolled revisiting of reminiscence fragments to uncover the truth rather than the sci-fi scope of the fictional universe. The main character is thus trapped by her own questions and guilt, renouncing the present in favour of an almost masochistic dive into the memory of her lover who, though dead, becomes an increasingly overwhelming presence.
When Norah relives the memories of her deceased lover, a wound from the past reopens. It’s time for unspoken questions to resurface. But could this be the beginning of an emotional healing or the sure path to self-destruction?
With a script reminiscent of the ethical and philosophical stakes of “Black Mirror”, this short film surprises with its compositional complexity that alternates the dynamism of a thriller with the introspective slowness of a psychological drama. But Jesse Cook III doesn’t just stop at the narrative level; he delivers a much more refined cinematic experience underpinned by a poetic and sometimes gloomy atmosphere. There’s no doubt we’re witnessing a professional, highly creative team, fully aware of its potential and skillfully harnessing it without diminishing the mystery surrounding the protagonist’s journey. This makes ‘LOOM’ a short film that somehow transcends the conventional structure of a story meant to provide a categorical answer, being rather a metaphor for the way each of us deals with our own truth in the face of personal failures.
