Synopsis
One night, Seolgi is lying on a grass field with friends. A shooting star falls, and dark and intrusive thoughts hit her, and her melancholy blooms into “flower people.”
Gorgeous and Authentic
Written and directed by Sasha Lee, Misery Loves Company is a gorgeous, startingly authentic exploration of intrusive thoughts. As Seolgi stargazes with her friends, an underwhelming shooting star leads her down a rabbit hole of intrusive thoughts. This South Korean short depicts Seolgi’s spiral as a sort of trippy music video, with the song’s lyrics vocalizing Seolgi’s increasingly scattered thoughts. And it’s this scatteredness that rings most authentic. Oftentimes when you’re hit with intrusive thoughts, they don’t necessarily make logical sense. One thought just leads to another and then another. And once you’re in that spiral, it’s hard to break free of it. And that’s what it’s like for Seolgi – one thought leading into another, leading into another. But then, almost as quickly as it began, Seolgi is back in the field with her friends, grounded once again.
The combination of the animation and the song creates this surreal, kind of unsettling atmosphere. For people more prone to anxiety, it might even be a little bit triggering. But there’s beauty to Lee’s work. The animation is striking, especially in the way it so perfectly depicts Seolgi’s various thoughts bleeding into each other. It’s like watching a kaleidoscopic tapestry of thoughts weaving in and out of each other. And it’s quite affecting. The visuals are very abstract, to be sure, but they’re fitting. On the whole, Misery Loves Company is a quick little film that brilliantly represents what experiencing a spiral of intrusive thoughts is like. And it’s gorgeous.
Rating: 4.5/5
Misery Loves Company is available as part of “Short Films Competition 1” at AFI Fest 2021
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