The Weekend tells the extraordinary story about a young man (Taso Mikroulis) helping a complete stranger (Danielle Guldin).
Two main motifs of this short film are aloneness and kindness. Aloneness is steadily fed to the audience from the first scene to the last. It underlines every decision that two main characters make, conscious or unconscious. It is shown through the sets chosen for each scene – loneliness in a crowd of people in the café in the first scene, the deserted pier where the main characters meet for the first time, the sadness of a once shared space of the young man’s apartment that is now only him, and the bathroom escape from the aloneness that the girl seeks in her addiction. It is a universal human emotion that everyone can relate to and everyone has experienced at least once in his/her life. But what the “Weekend” shows us is that aloneness doesn’t have to always be a negative, or a bad thing. With a little nudge of simple kindness, it can grow into contemplative state, it can bring peace, quiet and center a haggard and tired mind.
The young man did not have to help the young girl who abused his welcome in his own home. He could have called the authorities when he found her unconscious on the floor of his bathroom. But he didn’t. Maybe he saw a bit of his own pain in her, maybe he recognized a fellow tortured soul who reached out for help. Maybe he felt responsibility for enabling her, or maybe he needed to feel needed by someone. Maybe he simply wanted to share kindness and hope, hoping that someone would one day do the same for him. I don’t know his true motivation, but I want to believe that even if all the aforementioned theories were true, that kindness was the most important one.
Both actors, Taso Mikroulis and Danielle Guldin, are gentle and unobtrusive, yet they perfectly get the emotions across to the viewer. Their chemistry is just right, complementing each other and the atmosphere of the whole movie. Even though the theme is quite dark and depressing, Cahlo managed to end it on the lighter note, with hope and positive outlook on the kindness given and kindness taken. The movie is finished in a circular fashion: in the end we find the young man in the same place – still alone in the crowd of a busy café, but not fighting his aloneness anymore.
Nikola Gavrilović