Deprivation (Short)
A wife is getting ready to start a new job. Her husband wishes her luck, and before going to his job, tells her that things are changing. She starts her job, with a desk next to that of a young man who spends his time looking at her almost as much as he looks at his computer. Her coworker discovers something about the wife, though, that, if revealed, will indeed change things for her and her husband.
What begins as a simple blackmail thriller becomes something more disturbing, more depraved, as the coworker really tries to teach the wife a lesson in a way that usually is only seen behind a paywall online. It’s pretty troubling stuff, but we do feel sympathy for the wife (played by Tamara Thelander) as she endures psychological abuse at the hands of her captor(s). She is set free, though not without one last obstacle to face as she tries to reclaim her everyday life.
As written and directed by Yu Feng, “Deprivation” is something of a morality tale, but isn’t always as straightforward as it probably should be. If the lesson were just about the wife’s transgressions, surely there is a less-humiliating way (for the character) to learn said lesson, and change her ways. And while the first scene with the husband and wife sets the entire story in motion, more understanding would help us understand the problems in the marriage without it just being a matter of “wife cheats, wife must be punished.” It’s a little too black-and-white while life is about the grey areas. Feng’s film is 20 minutes long, but it feels like it should be longer, if only so we can get a fuller picture of the lives these characters lead. As it is, we get a beginning, a middle, and an end, all sharply defined, but none of them particularly satisfying from a narrative perspective. It’s an interesting story, and a well-made short, to be sure, but the psychology on display is a little too unsettling to make it something I can recommend.
