Providential encounters are not only a proof of the mysterious way in which destiny manages to radically change our way of thinking, but also a subtle way in which life shows us that we are imperfect beings who sometimes have to look beyond our own pride, in order to see the light behind the obstacles we create. ‘Dovetail‘ is a short film that, starting from the miracle of a tragic encounter between two men, gives us an intense and tender fragment of authentic life against the backdrop of a sensitive human context haunted by the spectre of an imminent death. The characters of Georgia Cotton do not respect the patterns of conventional heroes and they are far from outlining the basis of a spectacular action meant to give the spectators a thrilling experience; on the contrary, these protagonists are the representatives of a blasé existence, confronted with the mistakes of a past that have condemned them to a self-destructive resignation, but to whom the disease can provide the opportunity of a lucid introspection. Thus, the action of ‘Dovetail’ that apparently opposes two emotionally incompatible individuals relies on a temperate, implosive exploration of the psychological mechanisms that generate the alienation of the characters from their own inner comfort, through an honest and emotional interaction about the futility of the extreme gestures that can compromise our happiness. Disease becomes for the young director a kind of catalytic element activating an often-essential lucidity that helps us preventing the erroneous trajectory of our own existential domino imposed by our reckless actions.
Even though they share the same hospital room, Harry and Jack don’t seem to have much in common. On the contrary, Jack’s attempts to start a conversation with his colleague hit every time an impenetrable wall of indifference and passive aggression. However, the imminence of death may favour a special moment of sincerity that will help at least one of them to change something in their own life… before it’s too late.
The lucid and temperate insight of director Georgia Cotton in the narrow universe of the hospital room governed by the heavy and invisible presence of the disease favours an empathetic analysis, devoid of pathetic inflections, through which she briefly explores the fragility of life which risks being compromised not by the illness, but by the mistakes from the past. Without adopting the principles of a simplistic moralizing film that offers us with ostentation a formula of happiness, this short film has the merit of providing a somewhat familiar experience to the general public, but relying not on the spectacular path of a destiny marked by the appearance of an epiphany, but on the very banality of its characters that embody two complementary and universal avatars of the human being. ‘Dovetail’ is a film that forgoes aesthetic excesses to carefully cut out a sensitive and recognizable existential moment, pushing the viewer to a necessary self-analysis.
For the director’s ability to capture with authenticity the emptiness of existences overwhelmed by the spectres of illness and death and for the lucidity with which it captures in a touching cinematic substance the strength of a providential encounter, ‘Dovetail’ was awarded with the 2nd Film of the Month distinction in the September 2019 edition of TMFF.
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