Little Girl Lost (Short)
Nickolas Duarte’s short films are not easy to digest- that’s part of why I love them so much. Even if it’s not a film that I love, as a whole, I’m always fascinated by the type of story he is telling, and how he tells it. In “Little Girl Lost,” he follows a young woman (KJ Davidson-Turner) whose life is in a state of flux as she transitions from one form of being to another, with a trip to a museum, which has exhibits of life and death, showing the path she finds herself on.
There isn’t a straight-line narrative to be written about here- Duarte’s film here is like many of his other films, and is more of a tone poem than a simple story or scene playing out. Duarte is always more interested in images that will bring out emotions in the viewer than just saying, “this is what you should be feeling.” This is kind of a tough one to wrap your head around, though- tougher than a lot of his other ones- but it’s imagery and the score (by Frank Dillon) are powerful, and have us curious to see what we can make of it; that’s part of why I watched it again immediately after finishing it the first time around. Films like this, you almost have to see more than once to get the sense that you’ve experienced it fully. With Duarte’s movies, I’m more than happy to do so.
Little Girl Lost from Crown Chimp on Vimeo.
