Film Review: Under Water (short film) (2018)

REVIEW:

More short fims, kiddies! Today we have UNDERWATER (with the alternate titles UNDER THE WATER and UNDER THE SEA, according to my research), written and directed by Eugene Puzyrevsky.

Our story opens on a girl (Ksenia Radchenko) preparing for a lovely bath. Seems like a pretty normal situation, except she thought she was alone. She isn’t. There is no dialogue, but the story is pretty clear by the end.

I want to open with this quote from the director that I found on a networking site. Translated from Russian so perhaps not perfect –

“When the budget is a half a sandwich (and they were eaten on the set), that is, only one change (ado 17 hours) and fast, instead of the supposed couple of weeks, stretches for more than three months. The result is a five-minute film. Funny arithmetic.”

For a film with a budget of “half a sandwich”, this thing looks and sounds really good. The film quality and sound mix are totally on point. Great music choices, lighting choices. Everything is really good here.

This is how a short film is done. Right to the point, with a complete story told in a few minutes.

So using my special short scale of one to five, five being awesome, I’m giving this film 4 candles.