Short of the Week
short film image

Les Poissons

With their entire lives stretching out before them, three young women make a secret pact. A poetic reflection on youth and all its firsts: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches.

Added this to my “To-Watch-For” list when it won the Bravo! Fact Award for Best Canadian Short Film at last year’s CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival. Now director Jean Malek has brought it online. From the description, “With their entire lives stretching out before them, three young women make a secret pact. A poetic reflection on youth and all its firsts: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches.”

We’re familiar with film poems at this site, however we’ve become accustomed to them being animated. This is a moody attempt to conjure up that depth of feeling through live-action visuals. Whether it wholly succeeds at this in its 5min runtime is a subjective judgement, but it is a nonetheless a fascinating attempt.

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Sondhi approaches films from the perspective of an uber-fan, knowledgeable film academic, and occasional filmmaker. His tendency to over-think his film criticisms is due to a background in Philosophy, but he is putting useless intellectualizing aside for this site.
  • Daniel Bottoms

    Romanticizing teen suicide is as irresponsible as promoting child pornography. Products like this do real harm.As promoters of film, you should have the social responsibility of acknowledging and acting accordingly. Some depressed child is going to see this and act out on it. If not emotionally then maybe fiscally, you should be motivated to pull this mental porn from your site. I do not speak as a lawyer, but as a nurse.My voice is also that of a parent. If you are not convinced my point is valid ,I would encourage you to ask yours.

  • Jason Sondhi

    Maybe I’m dense, but I thought the film vague enough to draw most any conclusion re: what it’s about, and that’s not the conclusion I drew.

  • http://jasonbkohl.com Jason Kohl

    @ Bottoms:

    I thought it was a suicide when I was watching the film, but dude, seriously; this is a movie, not an instructional video. Should we protest The Virgin Suicides as well?

  • Felonious Punk

    I thought it was about friends, depression, drinking, drugs, and sleep. Ah, poetry! Thanks, Jason Sondhi.

  • Lover

    wow… beautiful.