Trigger warning: suicide.
First release in 2018, Yulia & Juliet may appear just to be another remake of the classic Romeo & Juliet story by William Shakespeare. However, this Dutch short film tackles numerous tough subjects by having our two leads Yulia and Juliet be female and embark on this lesbian relationship in a closed juvenile detention centre.
My first exposure to Yulia & Juliet was during the summer of 2018, when I was on a committee having to select the short films we would show at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. I am naturally drawn to retellings of Romeo & Juliet, so it did not take much for me to be impressed by this short film from director Zara Dwinger.
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This is not only a different retelling of the classic because of the obvious change in sexuality, but also because of the location. Placing our lead characters in a juvenile detention centre immediate changes our perspective of the lead characters, and yet the audience is given enough time to care about them and this relationship. For only 11 minutes, it packs a lot of punch.
There is room for discussion about how mental health is represented and what the impact of the last scene entails. It does not shy away from the subject matter and does follow the source material closely in the final scenes, something that perhaps could have been more sensitive on. It can be easy to see why a short film like this glamourises suicide and mental health issues, and to this day is something that is worthy of discussion.
It can be easy to see that a film is a retelling of a classic story and doesn’t need to be retold, but Yulia & Juliet is an example of why sometimes retellings are necessary. This is a bold narrative to take on and to fit into a short film, and yet Zara Dwinger manages so beautifully with characters that are flawed but create so much impact. I hope to see more people take risks with their retellings like this one.
