Father and Daughter

Of the short films we watched today, I was struck most by Father and Daughter.  The art and style is very simple and there is no dialogue, but I think that's what makes the film so interesting to watch.  It plays along with the idea that Fredrick Buechner described in Telling the Truth, where a storyteller takes something ordinary and turns it into something extraordinary.  For example, most of the film is watching the girl ride her bike to the top of the hill and looking out over the water, waiting for her father to return.  This scene plays over and over again, but each time, something changes.  The girl doesn't just get older; you also see the seasons changing, you see the scene at different angles, the tone of the music changes, and so on.  One part I loved artistically is when she rides up yet again after it had rained.  You can see her reflection in the puddles, and it just looks great with that simple, rough, sketchy style.  

From a story standpoint, the film also surprised me.  Pretty much from the beginning, I could tell what was going to happen -- the father would not come back and we would see the girl keep coming back to the same spot.  This all played out as I thought it would, but with that kind of a story, you can't really determine how it will end.  Will she ever find her father? If so, where would she find him? In the end, I love how they show her (now as an elderly woman), finally stepping onto the water (which is now a thick grassy marsh land I guess), and finding the capsized rowboat.  She then curls up beside it and dies, I'm assuming, and then awakens in heaven (or perhaps it's just a dreamy state of mind) as a young girl again reunited with her father.  It's a beautiful ending that's happy on the surface, but also quite sad.  Happy that she finally found her father; sad that she never saw him again when she was still alive.