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I've been a parent for around 3 years, and it has proved to be the most perpetually stressful and exhausting thing I've experienced in my life. There's no corner of my life where parenthood hasn't seeped through to, whether it is because the kids keep taking over everything we do, or because I just can't help but keep my eyes on them. That is some of the subtext that is underneath this short film by Graham Parkes.
Where You Are follows Jen (Sarah Burns), who is busy folding clothes, when her young kid James (Hudson West) asks her to play hide-and-seek. But when he actually disappears, Jen is taken in a surreal journey through time to find him. From James' rebellious teenage years to the eventual departure from "the nest" in adulthood and back to his playful childhood.
Parkes takes a simple premise; a game of hide-and-seek and a missing son, and uses some clever direction to takes us on this journey. A journey that is not as much about finding James, but more about realizing that we just can't keep our eyes on our children every time, and we just can't see where they're going every single time. For a parent, that is a concept that's difficult to grasp. As kids, they gravitate toward us, they need us, they scream for us.
But as they grow up, those times will pass, and we'll be left wanting to know where they are all the time, what they're doing, and where they're heading. And like it or not, our kids will clash with that because it is in their nature to move forward, to explore, to find new things and new ways. Where we are then? Eyes open desperately trying to find them, or eyes closed trusting they'll find their own way and we'll find them in the end?
Grade:
WHERE YOU ARE
(2016, Parkes)
A film about mothers
(2016, Parkes)
A film about mothers
"You have to close your eyes, okay? So you can't see where I go."
I've been a parent for around 3 years, and it has proved to be the most perpetually stressful and exhausting thing I've experienced in my life. There's no corner of my life where parenthood hasn't seeped through to, whether it is because the kids keep taking over everything we do, or because I just can't help but keep my eyes on them. That is some of the subtext that is underneath this short film by Graham Parkes.
Where You Are follows Jen (Sarah Burns), who is busy folding clothes, when her young kid James (Hudson West) asks her to play hide-and-seek. But when he actually disappears, Jen is taken in a surreal journey through time to find him. From James' rebellious teenage years to the eventual departure from "the nest" in adulthood and back to his playful childhood.
Parkes takes a simple premise; a game of hide-and-seek and a missing son, and uses some clever direction to takes us on this journey. A journey that is not as much about finding James, but more about realizing that we just can't keep our eyes on our children every time, and we just can't see where they're going every single time. For a parent, that is a concept that's difficult to grasp. As kids, they gravitate toward us, they need us, they scream for us.
But as they grow up, those times will pass, and we'll be left wanting to know where they are all the time, what they're doing, and where they're heading. And like it or not, our kids will clash with that because it is in their nature to move forward, to explore, to find new things and new ways. Where we are then? Eyes open desperately trying to find them, or eyes closed trusting they'll find their own way and we'll find them in the end?
Grade: