Patriarchy

This was an amazing short film. Marcus Freeman wanted to "go straight" and not get into any more trouble with the law, but when his father picked him up after he was released from jail, he had other ideas. He forced Marcus to help him in his crimes. Marcus was forced into a life of crime once again; however, after learning his father's secrets, he was forced to choose between betraying his father or following him into a life of crime. It was a very emotional short film. PATRIARCHY is a film that thrives on ambiguity. It makes you do the thinking, the talking, the piecing together of the story. It works to reveal and explore the various types of prisons in which young people can be trapped, and promotes a sense of strength through helping one another.

The dark, ambiguous father-son dynamic and their apparent lack of relationship or identity as a pair fascinated me. The son had almost no reason to stick with his father, yet he did for some ingrained, primal reason.

At the story's destination is a brief expose of a social injustice that I believe to be on par with slavery, terrorism and any other issue that has garnered so much attention. Unfortunately, it lives purposely in the blind spots of the public eye and the shadows of society, so it is left largely unaddressed, much less changed.