Are They Smiling?
2020 · 10m · USA
Directed by Kate Jean Hollowell
Tones: humorous, melancholic, whimsical
A young woman wanders a county fair carrying her dead parents' ashes, holding imaginary conversations with the urn between deep-fried rides. She crosses paths with another mourner doing the exact same thing.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Bring your dead parents to the fair — a premise that should be unbearable but isn't, because Hollowell trusts a long lens and a tilt-a-whirl more than a monologue. The grief movie I didn't know I'd tolerate.
Kate Jean Hollowell carries her dead parents' urn through a county fair and accidentally meets another mourner doing the same — Miranda July's early shorts with the funny and devastating in the same beat. Doesn't flag which is which.
Grief tourism at a Ferris wheel, two strangers carrying their parents' ashes through deep-fried rides — Kate Jean Hollowell finding funny and devastating in the same beat without flagging which is which is the actual skill.
Reviews
Just watching Hollowell move through the fair is engrossing, but there are some real laugh out loud moments as well.