Ancient Voice – A Short Film Review
Ancient Voice is an excellent story driven short film that keeps audience guessing until the final moments. A great effort from a very strong team of filmmakers.
What’s It All About?
A young journalism student, Zeynep, meets with Efe away from the city. Efe tells Zeynep about a popular myth among the native villagers. This myth is about a vampire-like monster from Turk Mythology called Obur. Efe asks Zeynep to write about the myth as Efe can’t make contact with any of the big journalists.
My Opinion
Ancient Voices’ strength is in it’s story. Written by Erdeniz Tunç and Can Sağır, the plot is simple and effective. We are given a clear beginning, middle and end. This is a well paced short film. The writers should be commended for creating a story suited for short film and not falling into the trap of trying to put too much into their films. I liked the use of telling the story by the way of a flashback before jumping forward to the present to get to the conclusion of the movie. This was a great way of telling the story.
Can Sağır also directed the film. Can gave us some well framed shots, especially inside the deserted house which led to some good visual storytelling. Unfortunately there were one or two scenes in the house that could be have been lit a little better, but I am guessing that is down to budget issues. I am not normally a fan of hand-cams but Can does a good job of keeping the camera steady so it is not too uncomfortable to watch.
I was impressed with the VFX from Hamid Eftekhari. The Obur was very impressive, particularly considering that this has been created on a shoestring budget. Hamid has done a good job creating a believable monster.
Buğra Çağan must also be commended for the films score. The music is very effective and fitting for the short. The music really does help to tell the story and heighten the drama.
My only complaint about the story as a whole was I felt like there could have been a little more character development. Given such a short runtime it will always be hard to invest in the characters and get behind them, however, Efe, the male in the short film is not given an introduction and we are not given a reason to get behind the character, which makes his untimely demise less effective. If the audience had a little more belief in the character then his downfall would have made a bigger impact.
The Verdict
The team behind Ancient Voice have shown that they are more than capable of creating movies regardless of the budget. There is some excellent storytelling on display and the overall short film is of a good quality. THe VFX and music are also a highlight of the film. I think a little more character development would have really helped the audience invest in the characters.
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