Ryba (The fish)

Alexander Kott, Russia

2008, 14'

An isolated house, somewhere in the ice and the snow, in front of an iced lake. A whild lives with his parents. One night, the father goes away... The mother get sick, and one day is taken by an ambulance, leaving the young 10 years old boy alone.

The relation between the boy and his mother is strange, she doesn't really take care of him. For the realisator « I wanted their relation to be null. They don't have bad relations, there is no problem between them. It would be another film. Their relation is a zero ». The boy seems to be a ghost, a spectator of his mother who never watch him, a witness of her pain and her disease.

The scenary of infinite ice is beatifull. Every texture of the wood house is having more and more importance, the shelter which is getting cold too, as all relationshis are disapearing. But the boy, who does not complain, who doesn't seem afraid or surprised, continue his life, without help. Surpisingly, the movie is very funny at some moments, by some childish games, and there is absolutely no pain, sadness in the film. The hero is the boy, and he doesn't really worry. He can take care of himself, maybe better than the adults that crossed his life.

The end really desserve to be seen... the lonely child grab the sthetoscope left by the doctor who took his mother, and start listening the iced lake... until he find a fish, stuck in the ice. After a long moment of digging in the ice, he brings back home a cube of ice with a fish, and stares at it, waiting it to melt... But the fish is awakening...

With a few pictures, this short gives us so many images, without any heavy demonstration of anything. Things are happening, and we are invited to witness it, and to dream about, not to judge.