Femme Filmmakers Festival Review: Pink Eye (Gabriela Routledge)

The extensive addition of student films to this year’s edition of the Femme Filmmakers Festival was certain to add a kind of rawness and nuance to the overall selections. We judge film as well as allow them to enrapture us. And with Gabriela Routledge‘s short film, Pink Eye, there’s a magnetic eye for pure cinema injected from the off. One that is easily distracting from a no-budget, entry-level perspective of film analysis.

Pink Eye might suggest something more unpleasant or sinister from its social implication as a slang term, but this 7 minute short film gives its audience a subtle, but penetrating glow. Quite literally for the most part. The ‘pink’ of the title is in pretty much every frame. And at varying degrees of vibrancy and tone. As well as utilised more with pastel measures in the film’s prop design. Yet the visuals nor the setting itself appear parodies or over-stylised.

And what of the story itself? Certainly depicting a part of youth Routledge must have been still embracing when she put pen to paper with Pink Eye. The central companionship almost feels like a reverse of the boy meets girl tale. Rather this, without giving too much away, appears to be a private, enduring moment of the girl unmeeting the boy. All the while, fitting seamlessly into the background of a familiar young lifestyle.

This very reviewer was hooked to the world of film before the writer-director of Pink Eye was even born. But that doesn’t mean Routledge has not heard of certain filmmakers like David Lynch and Ingmar Bergman. Yes, both of those legends came to mind when viewing this – particularly the first time. But that absurdity and coldness, respectively, those storytellers often oozed, is not all that Pink Eye offers. In fact, in many parts of its short runtime, it is extremely thought-provoking and moving.

Routledge had a definite creative spark here, and one which might easily have audiences assuming this was her fourth or fifth attempt at filmmaking. Shots are clearly and carefully constructed, and what fills the frame is often bliss – regardless of the emotion attached. Even the seemingly sporadic editing was likely deliberate to the second. So yeah, craft-wise this hits the spot.

Elsewhere, there’s a cast of characters pulled from a young person’s social handbook. Performers so comfortable in their skins, it just adds a kind of admiration to a director who can at least build a decent rapport with her players – whether fine blocking or dialogue beats. And on the sound itself, it seems to be wrapped in cotton wool. And not just the audio effect of opting for a hushed ambience over a boom-boom bash over the head, but also just for the care and attention attached to the film and it’s story.