Embers

A woman waits for her husband to return from the war, alone and heartbroken, and also being hunted by the ghost of the same war.

The short certainly knows how to grab the viewer's attention. It starts with a slow pace, which is maintained throughout the entire short, but just when the viewer thinks that they are going to get bored, there's an incident that hook us right in. The strangeness and the surrealism of the situation let us see just how much the woman is suffering by the absence of her husband, no dialogue needed.

The placing of the setting is amazingly good, too. Without truly mentioning out loud, we know-- by the silence of the women, the state of the house, and the sad feeling of it-- that there's a war going on, and that the main character has been left waiting, and waiting.

Despite its good points, the ending is a little anticlimatic. There's no resolution for the woman, and the incident that hooked the spectator in isn't explained at all. Even when the short manages to grab our attention and have us patiently waiting through its slow pace for a resolution, it fails to deliver a satisfying explanation for just what the story is really about.