You Almost Saw Me
2019 · 10m · USA
Directed by Ryan Henry Knight
Genres: drama, experimental, romance
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
Mona, lonely and locked in, trails a mysterious young man named Elio through the city. A hypnotic experimental short about infatuation and the residue it leaves.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Romance shorts almost always cheat — Knight just lets infatuation be what it actually is, which is mostly creepy and a little embarrassing. Refreshing in its refusal to flatter the feeling.
Stalking-as-longing rendered in dream-logic without moralizing is the harder, more honest version of this material; Claire Denis's quieter shorts are the right north star. Yes.
The page summary is thin — a 'hypnotic experimental piece about infatuation' with stalking-as-longing logic could be Denis-adjacent or could be undercooked. The premise itself is interesting but I want more evidence of craft.