Lion (Short)
Davide Melini is a short filmmaker of great craft, and an ability to tell simple genre stories in a short period of time. It’s been about a decade since I’ve seen one of his films- although this one has been in my Inbox since 2018- and his talents remain sure-handed as a technical storyteller. In “Lion,” which has garnered much acclaim on the film festival circuit, they are at the service of a story that feels a bit thinly drawn, more hinted at than told, but still effective as a genre narrative.
There are three characters, in an isolated house in the snow. The father is always drunk, and watching TV. The wife is afraid, and paralyzed by that fear. And we see the child in bed, hugging their toy lion, hoping it will protect them. Within such a setting, pain and tragedy will inevitably occur. This particular evening, it does, but not in the way this family expects. The visuals do more of the heavy-lifting here than one would normally hope for in a film, but those images are impactful and get the point across effectively in this story of a family terrorized by anger for too long.
