Perplexed Music is a short film about a man's journey through grief. It explores a part of people's lives that is surprisingly under-represented in films. This film manages to do this without any didactic elements or passing judgement, which results in moving sincerity that will resonate with the viewer. It manages to portray grief as something both very inward and personal, and yet so universal.
The film starts with the image of a man locked away from the world and yet surrounded by life and love. This skilfully shot juxtaposition immediately gives us a sense of the man's extreme loneliness and pain.
As the man sets on his journey through this serious life event, the film deftly plays with mixing the actual with the allegorical and the past with the present to guide the man through his pain, see him reconnect with the world and end on an uplifting note.
Music plays an integral part of this short film. An original song based on Elizabeth Barrett-Browning's sonnet that gave this film its name runs through this film like a thread giving it unity. It is simultaneously a normal song performed by a busker, and yet it contains all the answers that the man is yet to find out for himself, thus reinforcing the notion of the universality of grief.
Visually, Perplexed Music is stunning. Each scene is both aesthetically pleasing and also conveying the right mood. It seems like the film gradually brings us through different seasons, furthering the idea that grief is a part of a natural cycle, and that after winter, spring will come again.
Intellectualizing aside, Perplexed Music is an incredibly moving, tender story about something very human and real that will hopefully touch you and enrich your experience in a way that only art can.
