Passage of a Flick
Imagine you walk through a closet and end up in your same room, but you see yourself doing whatever activity you were doing moments before. You’ve essentially traveled back in time. It’s a fun subject to think about with all the possibilities it can hold, right? Well, this is exactly what “Passage of Flick” does, and it’s beautiful.
It opens on a little girl, Felicity, who moves into a new room. She draws sketches while laying on her bed and suddenly her closet door opens up. She looks over… And her own self walks through the door, smiling. The one “traveling” grabs Felicity by the arm and rushes her to her other door, pushing her through. Felicity flies through the closet door and sees herself drawing on the bed like she was doing moments prior. She smiles. That very smile starts an adventure that really struck something with me. A sense of hope.
What this film does is explore what it means to grow up. How we are faced with challenges daily and have a huge amount of self-doubt we can’t even fathom to cope with. Having a young Felicity travel through that door too see her future-self in so much turmoil over drawings reveals so much about what it’s like to be human. It’s touching. I feel like the filmmakers really nailed how innocence of our childhood can spring new inspiration at the most difficult times.
The score added a lot of depth to the film itself. It had an uplifting melody that really paralleled the essence of innocence. There were moments where it really got melancholic as we see the older Felicity struggle with her skills and the younger Felicity watches, confused on how growing up can be so awful.
Another thing that really contributed to this was the casting of both Felicity’s. Their resemblance was never questionable and the chemistry between them when they had interactions felt sincere and genuine. When one was sad, I felt sad with them. When one was feeling curious, I felt curious with them. With every action the characters made, I was following every step behind them wanting to keep on this adventure with them.
The cinematography and direction of this short felt really fluid. The camera acted as a ghost in the air and at times it felt timeless, like we were observers of the endless time traveling. I loved the trickery of having young Felicity open the door and throwing her book from the closet. It was innocent, creative, and well-executed. There are plenty of moments like those throughout this short film.
I wish it would have explored other time theories like the butterfly effect. What negative impacts could her interaction with herself have on the surroundings? Would this affect other timelines if there are multiple realities? Of course, those questions would add a lot of complexity to the story itself and take away the awesome message it has towards the end. And for a short film to explore those would be extremely hard. Perhaps if this short is adapted into a feature those are some possibilities to explore as it does give more conflict for the central character; for this short I felt there was no real conflict or imminent threat; unless the threat was her own self-doubt.
That being said, I do highly recommend this. I got teary-eyed towards the end because it reminded me of how much I have changed as an individual, and I couldn’t help but wonder if my younger self would approve of what I’m doing now or knows ways to help me overcome my own burdens. Really, it’s touching and sincere and rather thought-provoking.
