It would be tempting to compare Alfredo Tanaka's Marie to the works of other filmmakers, perhaps those with whom you'd be more familiar. Lynch, perhaps? There are others I could easily choose.

But, why?

Marie is an Alfredo Tanaka film, a patient and disciplined and beautiful film that inspires thought and feeling and even an almost dream like state as we begin by being introduced to a world that is somehow both meditative and more than a little jarring. Marie, played quietly yet beautifully by Katarzyna Koleczek, is a picture perfect young woman who loves for the one thing she cannot have. She is willing to undergo anything to acquire it.

This is the essence of the film and I will describe it no further.

Marie is about love. Or it isn't. Marie is about obsession. Or it isn't. Marie is about identity. Or it isn't.

The truth is that Marie is likely about all of these things and in all of these ways it works quite well. Tanaka manages the film beautifully, opening it with a scene that is both intimate and unsettling and refusing to let us know why we feel this way. The lensing by George de Freitas is simply extraordinary, while the music from Jack Northover and Jack Pescod companions the film to perfection. Sophie Black's editing is simply exquisite.

I love films that leave me both lost in thought and emotion and Marie is such a film. In only his second short film, Alfredo Tanaka leaves me anxiously awaiting his next effort after what will hopefully be a long festival run for this sublime production.

© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic