A Holiday from Mourning
2020 · 15m · Netherlands
Directed by Zara Dwinger
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: melancholic, tender
A teenage girl attempts to escape grief over her mother's death by joining friends on a post-exam trip to a Portuguese party town, only to discover that running from pain makes it impossible to bear.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Grieving teen tries to outrun her dead mom at a Portuguese party town and the neon makes it worse. Aftersun comp is doing more work than I'd like, but the contrast structure usually pays off.
Dwinger using neon party chaos to amplify rather than relieve grief is the precise inversion Charlotte Wells canonized — and Sara Luna Zoric is the kind of presence such an interior film requires. Fifteen minutes of suffocating perspective, well-staged.
Trapping the protagonist's grief in deliberately jarring neon-party chaos rather than letting her escape into it is the right structural inversion — the contrast amplifies rather than relieves. 14:46 with Sara Luna Zoric carrying it; whether the visual contrast holds is the test.
Reviews
Grief is something we'll all have to experience at some point in our lives and while it's not a feeling you'll be eager to immerse yourself in, if you want an accurate depiction of it then you need look no further than A Holiday From Mourning.
Sara Luna Zoric impresses as Lila — you experience the devastation alongside her, trapped in her perspective and unable to escape the suffocating misery.
Festivals
- Nederlands Film Festival 2020
- Asiana International Short Film Festival 2020
- Palm Springs International ShortFest 2021
- GoShort International Short Film Festival 2021
- 20minmax Short Film Festival 2021