The Girl Is Mime

Imagine a team given just 48 hrs to create a short movie and then you've go the concept of 48 Hour Film Project. This is Far From Home Films' entry to the last year's London competition, and it deservedly won them some of the awards.

Basically it is a silent movie starring a mime and that's about all I'd like to tell about the story. For the thing that really intrigued me as a silent movie aficionado is that Lillian Gish insisted on the fact that silent movie acting was no mime and now here we've got people exactly playing with this idea. The mime really lives in his mime world, in contrast to the "real" world of his girlfriend. Yet the excellent Martin Freeman as the mime manages to subtly work out emotions that run beyond the mime's painted surface. If you come across it at a short film festival in your vicinity, be sure to catch it.

I had seen a short film made in under one weekend as part of a challenge and the setting here appears to be the same as the target was to write, film, edit and deliver a short film all in under 48 hours. The difference here is that somehow the short film got Martin Freeman to take part – he of Hitchhikers Guide, Hobbit, Sherlock and other such big deals. So it is instantly an unusual offering to see him sitting in full mime makeup and costume being silently quizzed about some crime he is suspected of.

The story unfolds in a rather one-joke way but it is a decent joke and the film mostly works it pretty well. I will be honest and say it was not as funny as I had hoped it would be and I thought the ending was a bit as a punchline. It does have some nice moments though and I guess you do have to give it credit considering that it was made at a fast pace in a very short period of time. Freeman's delivery helps it a lot and he is funny even though he is ultimately doing a standard mime act – his facial expressions are good although I remain of the opinion that physical comedy is not really his strongest side. It is still amusing and quite a clever idea although considering that and the big name, I would almost have liked them to have taken longer than the 48 hours and strengthen it out in terms of the detail, to be funnier and cleverer.

I've never understood the so called art of mime . It really is limited and confined to :

1) Man walks through a gale force wind

2 ) Man pulling on a rope

3 ) Man trapped in a glass box

4 ) urg , uh , hmmm , insert a fourth mime situation and console yourself that you've got a better imagination than any mime artist

In short I saw the synopsis of this short film and wondered how it was going to be padded out to seven minutes . I thought perhaps it was going to revolve around a tough hardened cop speaking to the mime artist and the artist replying in mime . This isn't how things work out and I was mildly surprised at the stylistic and quirky manner of the film . There is an element that it might have done a bit better with the idea but it did surpass my expectations and does bring double fellatio to the table so that's four mime acts I can now name off the top of my headand makes the film something of a success

The basic motif for see it is Martin Freeman. who does a good job. the basic motif for do not see the film is the ambiguity of story. who does not works. who seems fake. and absurde. it is a mute film who tries to use the mime art . but the confusion is obvious. too obvious for the viewer who looking for a crumb of credibilityy to this short policier. the borders between mute film and the show of mime is clear . and the ignore of this simple truth remains the real sin of a film proposing an absurd story, nice in first part, bizarre in the last. so, use of appearences. not in the most clever manner.