If the short film ‘Rural‘ has a great quality, it lies in the naturalness with which the director captures the way a love relationship is born. However, we are not facing a drama with extreme psychological inflections, although Amelia Annen is aware that she is approaching what many viewers would call a “forbidden love”. In other words, the short film focuses on the emotional connection between two young women, tenderly tracing the beginning of this spontaneous affinity. The project lacks the ostentation of many cinematic pro-LGBTQ+ manifestos, and this is further proof of the director’s intuition that avoids putting such a love story in front of the canons of “normality”. In this micro-harmony, there is, therefore, no censorship of a puritanical society, even if the condescending patriarchal stereotypes about “girls kissing each other all the time” are not ignored by the director. This subtle observation is not necessarily aimed at social criticism, but it is well enough articulated to capture the specifics of a retrograde mentality. What really matters, however, in this succinct exploration of a trio where she leaves him for other women is precisely that normalcy, devoid of stridencies, offering an authentic slice of life while avoiding the pattern of exceptional, larger-than-life heroes.
This tender look at the love affair between the two young women is captured by Amelia Annen in a quasi-idyllic, palpable and evanescent atmosphere with retro inflections. In some places, the short film condenses a diaphanous sensory experience, in which stylized footage images “glitches” the emotional progression between the two protagonists, posing them in a natural setting taken from postcard photos. It is an extremely suggestive technique that the director knows how to dose with attention and sensitivity, giving us the premise of a story with a lot of potential. Therefore, at the current stage, despite its well-punctuated aesthetics, the short film has many unexplored spaces on a narrative level, which make us not know the characters of this storyline completely. Still, ‘Rural’ is a promising first step in a more elaborate cinematic project, but viewers will feel the need for more to be convinced they’re in for a truly memorable experience.
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