'Pale' (2023) Dir. Andrew Gray - 9/15

BRETT SIXTYSIX

Pale is the short film debut of director Andrew Gray. Starring Alex Botto, Tyneak Hellings, Melinda Fall, Franco Leo, Serkan Tokgoz, and Andrew Gray, it tells the poignant story of Diana, a young woman striving to overcome past trauma and heal parental wounds.

The film is rich with gentle symbolism, from the opening scene on the beach to the very last frame. Color and sound are used to great effect in portraying the anguish and grief Diana experiences. The cinematography is excellent—concise and minimal in the best possible way—complemented by tight, practical editing and wonderful sound design and mixing that deliver the story in both an enjoyable and economical manner.

The choice of highly emotional music by the acclaimed Scott Buckley adds another layer of depth to the film. The strong and honest performances from the entire cast make the film even more impactful. I look forward to seeing more of Andrew Gray's work in the future.

Rating: 4/5

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DIA TAYLOR

‘Pale’, directed by Andrew Gray, tells the story of Diana (Alex Botto) as she struggles with past trauma while coming to terms with some bad news.

What can I say about this film? It has potential and as filmmaker Andrew Gray’s directorial debut, I can see a strong film career ahead for this filmmaker, but for me personally this film doesn’t quite hit the beats it intends to.

Opening with a fast moving pan shot that makes the audience struggle to place themselves, we find ourselves on a drab beach on a stormy day as Diana meets up with her friend Jenny (Tyneak Hellings) who can instantly tell something is not right and suggests a hypnotist.

This scene is by far my favourite visually with the windy scene feeling almost like a visual metaphor for the turmoil inside the character’s mind. The colour grade enhances the coldness of the scene and it feels like I’m watching something powerful. An excellent job by cinematographer Bobby Bedi here indeed.

Where this scene, and the rest of the film, loses out is in its audio. As a filmmaker myself I am no stranger to the struggles of shooting near a beach with dialogue - audio is always unusable and ADR is a must. Unfortunately I feel the ADR in this film is very noticeable and sometimes doesn’t quite sync up with the footage.

Excellent choices regarding the music score for this film. I was looking to see who created the tracks, but unfortunately the music in the end titles isn’t properly credited so I guess we will never know. An important lesson to all filmmakers out there; even if you are using creative commons music, make sure you credit music properly. .

From the beach we find ourselves in a rather empty hypnotist’s office where a hypnotist (Franco Leo) has Diana reliving some trauma. This scene is the first where I feel Pale just misses the beat it was aiming for in its storytelling. Our flashback scenes of Diana’s parents fighting (Melinda Fall and Sekan Tokgoz - two excellent actors I have been lucky enough to work with myself in the past) are meant to be traumatic and hard but with a similar grade to the present and clunky camera movements, feel out of place to the rest of the film. A more violent argument might have saved this scene,Though I do love the father’s hand gesture of a talking hand where the rest of his body is hidden from view. This scene is meant to be alluding to Diana experiencing family violence but feels as though she is just eavesdropping into a regular conversation. Or do I just have weird conversations with my family?

One thing this film also struggles with is introducing and building characters.This is always a struggle with short films as you have limited screen time to do this, but this is what dramas like this film thrive on. We want to feel these people are people. We want to hurt with them, cry with them. This film I feel doesn’t give enough time per scene to really develop this. We don’t quite understand the relationships each character has with each other. But for a first film this is common and something I know Gray will develop overtime. The building blocks are there.

A positive of this film I found was how each scene transitions into the next. It’s flawless and I hardly noticed when one scene ended and another began.

A good use of audio and shots. Scene transitions are something many filmmakers struggle with - myself included - and Gray does it so naturally. Pacing in dialogue works wonderfully too. Each pause gives the audience just enough time to take in what was previously said while not being too long that we lose attention. Moments are held onto.

As we get to the climax of the film where all is revealed, the film loses itself a little. We find ourselves at a school passing as a hospital, not well I’m afraid. We hear rain but can’t see it, and a lot of questions in the story go unanswered. Why does Diana instantly hang up on her mother when she calls her? Why does Jenny instantly guess that Diana can see the dead without any evidence or logic?

Another thing to note. When we do actually see the father and see what she’s been seeing, He feels too much a part of the scene. If that makes sense? We are meant to believe that this is the spirit of her father but to me he feels like he’s just hanging out in person with her. Perhaps some clever lighting trick or visual effects could have highlighted this a little more.

The final beat I felt missed was that of Diana’s explanation as to why she can see her father. ‘Because he’s my father’’ she says. This would have been a powerful line had the film built up to this at all. As previously stated, I felt this film lacked building character relationships. Diana and her father needed a warm moment or something to make the audience believe that he would choose to visit his daughter. That he was more than just a man mocked his wife with talking hands. Had we had some character and relationship building between the two, the line ‘because he’s my father’ would have hit home but unfortunately it felt empty and meaningless at the end.

Upon first watching this film, I admit I struggled to understand the full extent of the plot. What was the message being told here? Why did I care for this girl? What was bringing on all this trauma? It wasn’t until a second more in depth watch with knowledge of the end of the film that I understood it. It is my belief that a filmmaker should never have to explain their film but this film did need it unfortunately.

ALL IN ALL:

‘Pale’ has potential and for a debut film, it is impressive. Far better than my first film that's for sure. If Gray can take on this criticism and grow from it, I know his next film will be better. It has the building blocks of a good drama but misses beats and would do with more character and relationship building

MY RATING: 3/5

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DANIEL BUGEJA

The first thing that grabs you with Pale is the opening shot, unfortunately I doubt for the intended reasons. Pale opens on an interesting and well selected location overlooking a bay, grassy knoll and a city with overcast skies behind it that instantly sets the mood in a moody somber way combined with the cold blue green colour grade it has all the potential of a perfect opening shot, unfortunately it is foiled by the open Pan that is way too fast that pulls you out of the moment.

This could have been a slip up, or just a time constraint concern as many shorts must focus content on where to spend their time. What I will say is for writer-director Andrew Gray, and first time filmmaker, it was almost a perfect beginning.

This pattern seems to continue throughout Pale, where one piece of the puzzle falls short. The opening continues into a dialogue scene where we meet our main character ‘Diana’ played by Alex Botto and her friend ‘Jenny’ Tyneak Hellings. Whilst their physical acting seems quite commendable as they talk about Diana's sleeping problems which results in Jenny recommending a hypnotist after a previous therapist doesn’t work out, it is overshadowed by the ADR that leaves them sounding like they are in a small room, not the outdoors are they are currently walking though, which is extremely distracting. Now I’m not condemning ADR, most will tell you that anywhere by the sea, when the wind is blowing which, it clearly was, practically guarantees ADR such is the cruel mistress that is real world locations. Sound is one place that is often overlooked by beginners, but once mastered, can give any story wings in the right moments and melt into the shadows when required. From this point to the end, it is the dialogue’s sound quality that is the biggest culprit of the aforementioned cold shower to the film’s quality.

On the other hand there are many things I would like to point out as well executed in Pale that I feel it important to mention that the Cinematography by ‘Bobby Bedi’ with a good mix of wide and close framing that kept the visuals interesting against a challenge for a lot of indie films; location selection. The editor unfortunately not credited at this time of this review utilized the shots to the fullest, cuts and scene transitions were seamless. Yes, I grumbled about the first shot but that was truly one of the only complaints I had about the cinematography.

Now as far as story, this is where we hit another roadblock, the tone of Pale is set to be morse and melancholy as we move through the scenes. We get to see the domestic family troubles of why Diana might need a therapist and hypnotist.

But unfortunately, Pale hides another challenge that beginner writers and directors struggle to capture; depth. Although we see Diana's concerns, they feel distant, she feels distant, all the characters feel distant, as if they are in another land. Their troubles, pain and sadness didn’t quite hit, much of this comes from a one dimensionality that all the characters have due to the fact when they have no other reference point, they exist to perpetuate the melancholy that sits over the whole film like the Blue Green grade that - whilst I fancy myself being a grader- I commend the colorist for pushing for stylization that few people do. Pale seems to overdo it, much like its tone saturating everything, leaving little room for contrast.

That is what Pale is missing most; story contrast. By the time we get to the six-minute mark everything feels contrived and the story starts to unravel, it feels like an entire subplot is missing as we hear about some unfortunate news of Diana’s father via a phone call and upon being introduced to Diana's mother in person at the what is being portrayed as a hospital entrance. We are then left with a sentimental scene for Diana’s father, the sentimentalism has no purchase due to the previous scenes. Domestic violence has given the father no redeeming features or context thus the final climax that was close to pulling off a story of familiar love is lost on us completely.

Overall Pale is a solid and ambitious first film to be proud of, if Director and Writer Andrew Gray takes the time to work on his craft and start to understand the intricacies of story and character building a short review of this can’t cover, I’m sure before long he will be winning awards.

MY RATING: 2/5