User Reviews

"On My Mind" is an 18-minute live action short film from 2021, so still fairly new and fresh here. It is a Danish production and also in the Danish language, so do not be fooled by the English title. Mostly, the title is English because it is a reference to the song that plays a vital role in here and I will get to that a little later. The English title also made it obvious that they clearly had the Oscars on their minds when making this film. Denmark has always done great in the live action short category. The director is Martin Strange-Hansen and he won before, even if it was almost 20 years ago and one of the producers won twice even. I cannot elaborate on the cast because I don't know the three key actors here, but they all did a decent job I would say, so probably my loss that I don't remember having seen them in anything else or that I actually haven't seen them. Don't wanna check now. Here I liked them all. This is a pretty sad story as we find out in the second half of the film. We have a man entering a bar and after drinking quite a bit, he sees the karaoke machine and decides to give it a go to come up with a special rendition of the famous Elvis Presley song "Always on my mind". Fitting choice because this number has its 50th anniversary this year and it is just a classic. Said rendition is for his significant other who is braindead and only the machines are keeping her alive. Not for long anymore though. The doctor's comment to not expect any miracles made it clear there will be no happy ending here and it also would not have been realistic at all. So all good.

Danish (short) films always manage to elaborate on serious issues, but still make you smile here and there. They are never 100% serious, even if they deal with the subject of death. Look at the grumpy pub owner who is not in the mood for karaoke and just wants to take care of his accounting stuff. Quotes like the answer to the question why karaoke is only used on the weekends will put a smile on your lips. So will the comment by the barkeeper who is clearly attracted to the stranger. On a metaphoric approach, there is talk about and the depiction of a specific kind of trace being left on glass. It has to do with liquid and temperature. I will not get into detail about that. It was a good inclusion like pretty much everything else, even if real greatness I never witnessed. I had the chance to watch all the Oscar live action short film nominees today and I would say that this one here is maybe my second favorite to win. Not the strongest year for the category, so three stars out of five are all I can give nonetheless. I would be perfectly fine with this taking the prize, but I somehow doubt it. You never know with the short film categories though, even if they actually did become a bit more predictable in recent years, and it would be a pleasant surprise for sure. By the way, interesting last name the director has. If you look at it from the language perspective. But it does not mean "strange" in the sense of bizarre obviously, just like this is not a strange film. It's a good one. That still did not turn out as moving as I maybe would have liked it to be, but that is cool too. I mean it took place at the pub anyway most of the time and not inside the hospital. It was not meant as a tear jerker. Go watch.

Although I predicted the denouement of On My Mind about 1/3 or the way through, I really hoped for the filmmakers to find a way to make it powerful. With few exceptions, I find extremely annoying the current trend of filmmakers making their viewers guess what's going on until at least half-way through the film, but I didn't find this film quite as annoying; perhaps the filmmakers intended for their audience to have figured out the entire film so soon, but if so, I'm just annoyed that they didn't get on with it. The conflict with the bar owner during the first 3/4 of the film did nothing to build any kind of emotion for the denouement. There is some nice symbolism with the protagonists breath fogging up his drinking glass, but it for me it came off as film student pretention.

***Here comes the spoiler:

Perhaps the reason I figured out the denouement 1/3 of the way through the film is that I was in the room several years ago when they pulled the plug after my brother suffered a stroke, and it was clear that his brain was gone. Since people who have been in coma (albeit rarely) awaken with a few memories of visits from loved ones while they were out, many caregivers suggest that you talk to loved ones in coma.