How far can guilt and feelings of abandonment push you towards self-destruction? But what happens when everything turns out to be a macabre farce, an exercise in psychological manipulation so refined that it is almost impossible to discern your own demons from the chimeras induced by an external entity? Between psychological drama and sci-fi, ‘Connection‘ is an intense short film about the fragility of the human psyche that probes the burden of emotional failure, as well as our vulnerability in the face of our own reproaches. Tom White delivers a deceptive, labyrinthine cinematic experience in which the dreamlike and nightmarish merge into vast, sometimes surreal landscapes of painful intimacy. We are talking about a project whose strength lies in its atmosphere, sometimes slow and poetic, other times shockingly visceral, which translates into an extreme process of consciousness.
When a government agent must interact with an extraterrestrial entity, things spiral out of control. Unable to understand the intentions of this strange creature, his mind is invaded by painful images of his ex-wife. The uncomfortable truth soon comes to light: the protagonist is, in fact, a guinea pig in a more elaborate diabolical plan.
The deceptively simple narrative orchestrated by Tom White is a vortex of disparate sensations, a dizzying descent into the abyss of the soul, where the atmosphere of a film like “Shutter Island” coexists with the contemplative slowness of “Melancholia.” The gradual revelation of the background of a trauma that turns into a self-destructive weapon becomes the pretext for a short film whose suggestiveness explores the invisible forces that govern our existence. A Freudian reading of this construct is implicitly necessary, especially in the context in which, beyond the theme of intimacy, the director tackles a political stake, a probing of the tensions between the individual and the social norms that often sabotage us. Far from being a light experience for viewers unprepared to give it the attention it deserves, ‘Connection’ is a short film that exudes professionalism and artistic intelligence, a special directorial vision that we hope to rediscover on other occasions.
