Off-beat comedies, such as those that combine animation with live-action, invoke a sense of fantasy by bringing the smallest things to life. Supernatural stories, such as The Sixth Sense, A Ghost Story, and Ghost, capture that phenomenon that always feels personal to us because of a sense of loss, that someone who is gone feels like they are still around.
These two subgenres add a layer of imagination and create a distinct look and charm to storytelling. Even making it more personal for the director. These two shorts give a glimpse of these different emotions through other traditional ways.
In MidRiff, a couple is about to have a romantic moment, their first, when the woman has to tell her date something that she has. That secret, a little embarrassing, is a living, singing piece of lint living in her belly button. Shades of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On are easily recognizable. The lint is like that imaginary friend someone has, but it is time to let childhood toys (or ideas) be put away and let go.
However, it’s a cute piece of lint (yes, a piece of multiple fibres coming from the dryer is cute), with the voice breaking mid-riff and a touch of clumsiness. And that tiny idea to the person of why it’s an odd thing to never let go of. To the woman, the lint feels like that childhood blanket you don’t want to give away.
In My Sister Is Dead, the story tells of a poignant tale of this ghostly feeling that comes with a sudden death. As a young woman named Anaaya prepares to go out with her friend, Rayaan, the start of a series of sounds begins to rattle Anaaya’s space, where she lives alone.
The wind from an open window, the brief shaking of the chandelier, and the sudden turn on of the hairdryer confirm Aanaaya’s suspicions of a ghostly presence from her deceased sister, Miraal. Why has she returned, though, is a scene of sibling rivalry and a still-lasting bitterness of not being there when it matters.
These two opposite shorts provide the extension of traditional comedy and drama, throwing in a dimension not necessarily thought of. Both films, however, have similar ideals in personal connections through unusual ways at home, in love, and in death. That is the closest way to remain attached to lingering feelings.
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