Baby (2010) Reviews

• Could be anywhere...

  tim-764-2918562012-11-11

  I don't usually watch film shorts but caught this 25 min one from director Daniel Mulloy, late on Film 4. Starring Arta Dobroshi, who as the young Bosnian woman who sees a pickpocketing and subsequent threat with a knife at a crowded bus-stop, this scenario could happen to any one of us, in any town or city, anywhere. The fact that it's set in London and features an array of ethnic groups, either as main characters or bystanders, is perhaps irrelevant, or not.... Truly filmed on location and on a budget, the pickpocketer, who's a black Londoner (Daniel Kaluuya) follows the woman onto her bus, they get chatting and strike up some sort of friendship. What happens when they get back to her flat in a house does seem a little odd, considering how the story started, but there is an almost human urgency of bonding that may portray the nomadic and transience of people within a large, modern cosmopolitan city, or again, not. I'm veering on the side of caution, so as to not add a spoiler. No explanation is offered, or perhaps, needed. The story is simple, yet deals with complex issues, through sparse dialogue (& tiny subtitles, when she speaks Bosnian). There's no great scope for flamboyant acting here but both leads are fine. It does make you think after, which is good and perhaps rare, but by the morning, it will probably have been forgotten by most.

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• Disappointing Short

  Theo Robertson2012-11-11

  A Young woman called Sara witnesses a group of youths robbing a woman at the bus stop . She intervenes and one of the robbers makes it clear he wants to go home with her I should put my cards on the table straight away and state that I'm not a big fan of short films . Often they stand or fall on their pay off and if the plotting isn't right then because of their short running time the flaws of their plotting are more pronounced . In effect most films are " idiot plots " in that if someone stops acting like an idiot then the film will end there and then This short opens with Sara taking a cocktail of medicinal pills and this ties in with the ending. Between the start and the ending there must be an inciting incident and this takes place when Sara witnesses the robbery . Certainly the female fear of unwanted sexual attention is very pronounced in BABY but after the pay off you'll realise that Damon's sexual interest isn't what the pay off is about - quite the reverse in fact because without a sexual interest the story won't work . But in that case why does Sara act so intimidated? In many ways this aspect of the film is similar to these cliff-hangers we see in DOCTOR WHO where the Doctor is pleading for his life all terrified that he's going to get executed by that week's villains but at the start of the next episode he magically pushes a button freeing himself . In that case why be terrified ? In many ways Sara's obvious disconcerting mannerism is very similar and lacks an internal logic

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