Take a stroll down memory lane with Apricot.

Synopsis

Do you remember your first love? Do you remember your first kiss? Do you remember?

Review

As the synopsis implies, this is about remembering. The act of, and those feelings that emerge when we conjure up the past in our heads. When we remember those people in our past that gave us the good feelings and the bad, we look at them with a tinted and biased lens. We’re not exactly remembering it verbatim, but rather as our hearts record those events in our minds. Memories are funny like that.

Normally I’m not much into a talking heads picture, but this one was enough to keep me interested. The action seems to come out of the dialogue in Apricot, where there are a few awkward moments and the reactions of the characters are what serves to propel it forward (or backward in some cases).

The camera work is subtly beautiful. For instance, the camera isn’t kept directly centered on each actor but rather off to the side. Any kind of visual background noise is eliminated through use of depth-of-field, so our focus is kept on them. Even the flashbacks have the hint of having that bias as they come slowly into a soft focus, as if we’re catching each character in the act of trying to remember harder.

It’s memories that are at the heart of this story. Marcel can’t remember. He must rely on his intuition and copious notes in order to construct a past of his own. And because of that, others around him, even complete strangers like Madeline share the memories of their own past, when they fell in love, their first kiss, etc. By them remembering, he can remember by proxy and experience those feelings.

It’s a poignant, and sometimes sad story, but overall worth a look.

What did you think of Apricot? Leave a comment below.

Information

Genre: Drama/Romance
Country: Australia
Release Year: 2009
Runtime: 10 min 39 sec
Written and Directed by: Ben Briand
Cast: Ewen Leslie, Laura Gordon, Alice Zahalka, Joshua Rozzi
YouTube Channel: MoonwalkFilms
Director’s Website: benbriand.com

Technical

Cameras: RED One, Canon EOS 7D
Lenses: Cooke Master Primes