Parallel (Short)
There’s a lot that can be done with a premise such as parallel universes- I’ve seen at least three movies about it in the past few years. This is another one that tells a simple, personal story about love over parallel universes, and it’s completely satisfying as it sets up its premise, and finds an emotional center.
The film begins with a father being visited by a man in black, having to take him away from his family. The father goes to say goodbye to his baby, and leaves him a chess piece to remember him by. Cut to a lifetime later, and the baby is a grown man, playing chess with a friend, and taking care of his dying mother, who hasn’t been the same since his father left. One day, he and a couple of friends are looking through some of his dad’s old stuff, and they come across something that looks like a time machine, along with coordinates. They go to his old storage unit, where the car is, and go to the coordinates. They next find themselves in another place, where the world is not quite like the one they know. Maybe they will get answers for his father’s disappearance.
A film like the one Gergö Elekes has made here is low on technological tricks and high on character, story and emotion, and that’s the best way a film like this will work. We need the emotional center of this film to be personal if the technology isn’t quite there, and Elekes and screenwriter József Gallai make sure this story keeps focused on that center. The sci-fi aspect of “Parallel” works, as well, because this has been a thought out and developed in how parallel universes work, and how they play out. It’s worth checking out.
