In the final moments of their lives, two men trapped in a siege, grieve the loss of their sons and struggle to understand what they could have done differently.
A twelve-minute film has no time to waste. Set, sound, costume, props, and actors must merge immediately to fill in necessary backstory for the audience. This is critical in order for the story to move forward quickly. The script must be bare-bones using keywords and phrases with connotations that conjure up pictures and situations our minds can fill in with details gleaned from knowledge and experience. “The Reception” is an example of one such film.
What does the audience know quickly? Two middle-aged men converge inside a dingy room while artillery and explosions are heard outside. The ground occasionally shakes, dimming the overhead light. The men, after a second or two of scrutiny, are dressed in evening attire that is dirty with ties askew and shoes covered in dirt and dust. One has a blood-smeared wound on his forehead and though they are both obviously distraught and anxious and fleeing something, they are not really physically harmed. There are two chairs and a table in the room and not much else. On the table is a bowl of strawberries, sprinkled with some of the same concrete type dust that covers the two men.
They sit and one man begins to blow the dust from a strawberry, preparing to eat it. With that, Robert, played by Richard Kind, begins a conversation that, in the next few minutes, touches upon many of the divisive issues confronting our very present society. We quickly learn a “militia” discovered that the men’s sons, Ben and William, were in love and their wedding was to be held earlier in the day. An explosive device was lobbed into the reception and the sons (and we assume guests) were killed and the fathers have escaped to this storage room. The script, deftly delivered by Kind and Suddeth, spits out all the hot words that tip us into fear: “gay,” “marriage of two men,” “weapons,” “how did they know,” and more. These men are the fathers of two gay men who apparently were determined to marry, even after the outbreaks in the country deemed that ceremony to be dangerous. Now their sons are dead. One father reminisces sadly over his lost family while the other berates everyone for not acting sooner, for not having foreseen the consequences of this brazen act of love. But, at the same time, he defends the stance as looking foolish if taken too early. Now it is too late. The world around them is crashing down and in the midst of everything are the strawberries and the story of the monk and the tiger that surrounds them.
The film is fast and furious, with Kind offering up the needed brakes at intervals, thinking back on both their sons. But, in spite of the speed of the action, director Sean Sakamoto allows time for both fathers to come to their own resolutions concerning what has happened, regardless of the fear and sadness. This 12-minute film is well-written, well-directed, and well-acted, but it’s a scary 12 minutes.
“The Reception” recently premiered at the Festival of Cinema NYC
