Girl in the Woods, The (Short, 2015)
Starring Deniz Aslem, Cevahir Casgir, Mehmet Samer
Directed by Tofiq Ryazev
With the look and feel of a slow-burn arthouse styled thriller, director Tofiq Ryazev takes the English screenplay called “Find Me” and wraps it up into a tight little 25-minute short that is moderately entertaining but has its faults. Allow me to introduce you to The Girl in the Woods.
The story is simple enough: Deniz Aslem is Mert, and he begins to receive text messages on his phone from his friend Cem, who has inexplicably gone missing after a tiff with his girlfriend. The message? All that is displayed are the words “find me” – creepy enough.
Turns out that one of Mert’s friends had seen Cem heading towards the woods, which was odd enough… even odder is why wasn’t the man stopped? Anyhoo, Mert’s curiosity gets the better of him, and he decides to take the vaunted stroll into the unfamiliar woods, where he is approached by a mysterious woman in white (Casgir), who is all too happy to reside amongst the trees. The two spark up some interesting dialogue…
And this is where the bus stops, kids. With a mere 25 minutes of screentime, any further deets from me would ruin a fairly fun watch.
Ryazev doesn’t go overboard with his storytelling, albeit it’s a little slow-moving, and the tempo is sluggish as well, but the idea of what is happening is a little eerie, and when all was said and done, you’ll think twice before deciding to talk to strangers in the forest, not that you didn’t before, but this short cements that cautionary directive. Visually, as I mentioned earlier, the film has the look of a muted arthouse presentation, with both sullen tones and exploding colors in the forest shots – might as well have something nice to set your eyes on while getting creeped out.
In closing, The Girl in the Woods is a decent addition to Ryazev’s resume, and aside from some pacing issues and dialogue that never seems to get out of first gear, I’ll offer this up as a one-time watch to those interested, but for goodness sake, keep your butts out of the woods, will ya?
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Film
Categorized:Reviews
