Salvador, Lorenzo G.

February 21, 2023

MA204-1 Mr. Christian Joshua D. Lomahan

FILM REVIEW
Chute (Strangers), 2021

● What do you think is the purpose of the film? What makes it good and what
makes it bad? How do you want to improve the film?

This arthouse film revolves around a peculiar woman who spontaneously

collapses around strangers whom she meets in her day-to-day life. In my own
perspective, I believe that this film’s purpose is to highlight the “mundane in the
mundane”— people who are overlooked, underappreciated, and deprived of attention to
the point that they become too self-sufficient to even demand attention in this already
ordinary world. This short film is the antithesis of the minority. The main protagonist
puts herself out of her comfort zone and proceeds to collapse onto strangers in order to
gain attention from them, which she is needy of. As she breaks out of her own personal
solitude throughout the film, I reflected and suddenly recalled Freud's psychoanalytic
theory wherein the Id, the Ego, and the Superego functions in an individual’s
consciousness. This film is the amplification of the main protagonist’s “Id” as she
succumbs to her impulsive thoughts that she demands attention.

This film was carried by its simplistic but deep-seated message as it focused on
the overlooked; as it also embodied the supposedly monotonous nature of the
protagonist. I commend the use of camera angles which framed each and every
character as an individual living a life like the protagonist. One thing that I did notice is
that the film’s continuity was quite lacking and there was little to no dialogue. It felt like
I was watching a series of clips instead of a short film. However, I think that it was the
director’s artistic choice to go with that approach as it depicts day-to-day life. If I were to
have a chance to improve the film, I would add more dialogue that the main protagonist
would say because I wanted to know the character more rather than just relying on her
body language and overall acting in the film.