Lollygag

The scouts

It's competent memory-work, sure, but the sensual-macabre premise feels like it's gesturing toward transgression without actually committing—the film stays safely in the zone where other coming-of-age shorts already live, which is exactly where I'd expect to find it.

D'Oyen builds a deliberate visual grammar around the simultaneity of pleasure and dread that echoes the psychological landscapes of Lynchian cinema and the formal restraint of Chungking Express—the editing rhythm between tactile, sun-soaked moments and creeping unease demonstrates a curator's understanding of how tonal collage functions.

The decision to anchor the entire film in the child's *physical* sensations—textures, heat, smell—rather than psychological narration is what sells the uncanniness; it's a deceptively simple choice that transforms what could've been precious nostalgia into something genuinely unsettling on a visceral level.

Reviews

Set in the leisured suburb of East Hampton, this sun-drenched short plays out a woman's sensual yet macabre childhood memory from the summer of her parents' divorce. A bleak study of isolation, ennui, obsession, and loss.