Curious Canadian film, shot in 16 mm and with great economy of means and set in suburban Calgary, Canada, the place where director and screenwriter Graham Foy spent his teenage years. Kyle and Colton are two friends, wandering around the neighborhoods on skateboards, going under the railroad bridge to draw graffiti with spray cans, bathing in the river, wandering around the nearby woods, joking, playfully fighting and talking about more and less, venturing into an abandoned house-yard, where there are only the supporting structures of the house, and in a basement they find a dead black cat: pitying it, they carefully prepare it and give it a secular funeral, abandoning it, in a makeshift wooden boat adorned with flowers, to the placid waters of the river. Then night falls and Kyle disappears, wandering along the railroad tracks, and Colton never sees him again. What happened to him? It is not known. The film, after this evocative beginning, goes on a bit wearily illustrating facts of daily life of teenagers and students at the school, unconnected, somewhat random episodes. The film is slow, not seeming to know where to go with it. But then someone sticks up posters: a school girl, Whitney, has disappeared: a shy girl, uncomfortable with older boys, disliking parties, awkward when with others, often alone, intent on writing in her diary, drawing. What happened to her? Colton, who continues to ride alone on his skateboard, who continues to go into the woods, watching the trains speed by, finds the little girl's diary abandoned among the grass. That she is dead? It is not known. Suddenly we enter a flashback, Whitney has wandered into the woods after arguing with her only friend, the night advances and in the woods she meets Kyle. They silently accompany each other as the moon watches them, talking about friendship, listening to music on headphones, stopping by the river, then also at the house-yard where an old cassette player still working has been abandoned. They listen to a love song. What will have happened? The viewer imagines, an approach, a violence, but the film does not answer, does not dissolve any doubts, the two boys have disappeared, no one knows where, it seems almost a supernatural mystery. And in the final scene Colton returns to the house-yard, goes to the basement, and finds there a black cat, like the one in the beginning, but alive, purring and snuggling in his arms.
While there are obvious flaws in the structure and moments when the film seems to get lost, one cannot help but admit that this little work has its own light and serene atmosphere, even if it seems to overshadow a tragedy. But if in the finale the black cat is alive and affectionate, perhaps all is not bad, all is not lost, and nature and man are ultimately benevolent in us, too, in our lives.
While there are obvious flaws in the structure and moments when the film seems to get lost, one cannot help but admit that this little work has its own light and serene atmosphere, even if it seems to overshadow a tragedy. But if in the finale the black cat is alive and affectionate, perhaps all is not bad, all is not lost, and nature and man are ultimately benevolent in us, too, in our lives.
