Stepping into a World of Dreams and Fantasy: A Review of the Short Film 'Chords Frets and Strings'

Many who are familiar with the world of short films know that it is possible to blend cinematic styles and genres and combine narrative patterns in a short film. A dramatic story can be displayed in a documentary fashion, or an entirely documentary subject can be pictured using dramatic methods. The freedom that independent filmmakers enjoy, due to the unrestricted spirit of independent filmmaking, allows them to comfortably blend styles, models, and genres as they wish , and to easily utilize the appealing aspects of various cinematic genres to achieve a work that is unique to them.

Angad Rai does exactly this in his short film, Chords Frets and Strings. Initially, it seems we are dealing with a short documentary, because the technique of interviewing the character is used, and the main character sits in front of the camera and talks about himself. However, as the film progresses, through the method the filmmaker uses to show us the character's inner world, including the visual equivalents he provides for the character's statements , we realize that the documentary tone is merely a shell used by the filmmaker to tell his story. In fact, the documentary-like tone was a playful, humorous trick to get closer to the reality of the story's character.

The character tells us about his relationship with his guitar, his passion for the instrument and for playing it , until we slowly realize that the film's subject is not merely a young man's relationship with his instrument, but is also intended to be a depiction of his loneliness. The character tells us he eats with his instrument, and the filmmaker immediately shows the scene of him eating with the instrument. The character explains to the camera that he sleeps with his instrument, and the filmmaker immediately pictures a scene of the character sleeping with the instrument. The filmmaker's playfulness in using a documentary tone, and then breaking the atmosphere of that very documentary by showing the character's private moments (i.e., sleeping next to his instrument) is actually getting closer and closer to the character's world.

It should be noted that making a film in confined and indoor environments is one of the most difficult tasks in the world of filmmaking. Only filmmakers reading this text know well how difficult it is to build the rhythm, language, tone, and world of a film in a closed environment, such as a small bedroom, in a way that avoids repetition and boredom. One of the methods the filmmaker uses is the dialogue of his narrator, the character sitting in front of the camera talking about himself and his guitar. Especially when we realize that the filmmaker is using the character's relationship with his guitar to create an allegory for the real relationship between a couple. By showing the character's relationship with his guitar, the filmmaker unfolds a world before our eyes of what fundamentally happens between a man and a woman. That sometimes a relationship can become toxic, that people are unaware of the outcome of the relationship, that moments of distance and separation always exist in seasons of love and closeness, and so on. This comparison and what the character says becomes a factor in the film's appeal.

The character we see before us, played by the director himself, Angad Rai, is one of the film's elements of attraction. His manner of speaking, the way he uses his facial expressions, and his type of narration about his relationship with his guitar, all serve to advance the story. In fact, the visuals complement the character's narration, serving as a supplement to his story.

Another important feature of this short film is that it constantly and progressively advances and highlights the element of narrative mischief and play. Initially, we imagine we are facing a short documentary, but through the character's words and the filmmaker's visual equivalents for those words, we realize there is no documentary involved; the documentary style is merely the filmmaker's narrative method. As we go a bit further—that is, from the midpoint of the film onward—when the interview with the character ends and the imaginary documentarians point the microphone towards the guitar itself so that the guitar can narrate its own account of the relationship in English, we realize that the film's fantasy world was larger than we initially thought. After the guitar also speaks, we understand that the film's world is about working with imagination and fantasy , and the path it has used to turn this fantasy into a film has, in a way, resulted in a film-within-a-film. In a short, narrative film, we witness the stages of making a documentary about a musician's relationship with his guitar , but since the main short film—the format within which the documentary is contained—is inherently filled with humor and fantasy, the documentary we watch is also full of a spirit of jest and humor. This spirit has helped the film's rhythm to be lively, energetic, dynamic, and engaging. The film's rhythm and editing rhythm have assisted the filmmaker in reflecting that mischievous spirit well.

In a short film, there is generally little opportunity for long and detailed exploration of characters' pasts and the background of human relationships ; instead, utmost use must be made of brevity to convey the most meaning in the shortest possible time. Overall, what Angad Rai has done is utilize the available resources, working in a confined space, and applying narrative tricks to make this simple story as engaging as possible. The simplicity of the story has not caused the filmmaker to falter in his narrative; rather, on the contrary, with this simple, single-line story about a musician's relationship with his guitar, he has succeeded in achieving a masterful and noteworthy treatment.

The final film is the result of an artist's ingenuity who, by using a limited location, with a single character, and simply by applying different tools and various narrative methods, has succeeded in creating an attractive and notable work that keeps the viewer engaged until the end. One can hope that in his next filmmaking steps, the director will pursue more ambitious projects and achieve exciting results in new fields.