Is The Dress (2020) good? Yeap, it's good.
This article is written in English.
TL;DR
The Dress (2020) is a good example of how a person actually wanted to be perceived by others.
Warning and Brief Explanation
Brief Warning
This review article contains spoilers. Please refrain yourself if you don't want to spoil yourself.
Age Rating
- I have little to zero detailed information about the viewer rating of this short film. I have taken a look at it's entry on IMDB1, or on Polish Film Institute2, crew united3, and Warsaw Film School4, but there is no further information about viewers rating I believe...
- Based on my understanding5, this movie does implied about sex desire, and such. But no scene shown explicitly, there was some nudity, but no genitalia shown, nor explicit intercourse. More details can be read below. Based on these, I think Restricted (R) is suitable for the rating.
Notice
- This article aimed to review this short movie, and spread information about it.
- No copyright infringement intended, aside from this article that is written by myself.
- Some media shown here, whether images, videos, or such are embedded from the original source.
Introduction
I heard about this movie from a tweet by Taufiqur Rizal (@TarizSolis) which appeared on my timeline. As it looks interesting (also a short movie, yay~), I decided to watch it.
Salah satu film pendek yg masuk shortlist buat kategori Best Live Action Short Film di Oscars 2022, "The Dress", bisa ditonton gratis dalam waktu terbatas.
— Taufiqur Rizal (@TarizSolis) January 10, 2022
Ini kisah seorang perempuan pengidap dwarfisme yg dikucilkan, kesepian & mendamba kasih sayang.https://t.co/EulimJpIQd pic.twitter.com/vxyuvDEOEJ
Prior to read this review, you could watch this trailers available on YouTube:
Original Trailer
New Trailer
Details and Viewer Discretion
Series Details
| Title | The Dress |
|---|---|
| Also Known As (a.k.a) | Sukienka1, 2, 3. |
| Released on | 02 June 2020 (in Poland)1. |
| Genre | Drama1, and probably has a Coming of Age theme too?5. |
| Type | Short Movie. |
| Running Time | 30 min, based on IMDB page1. Based on the movie available on YouTube, the duration is 29 min 59 sec, which included pre-credit, post-credit, and ending scenes. |
| Notable People |
|
| Original Country | Poland. |
| Spoken Language | Polish. |
| Subtitle | Currently the short movie is only supported with hard-coded English translation. No other language provided. |
| Screening | Limited Screening, based on certain time (such as YouTube, currently), or certain invitations from movie festivals (I think...). |
| Platform or Where to Watch | Currently, available through YouTube. But I am not sure when the movie will be private or unlisted as it is shown as "Online for A Limited Time" on the description. |
| Sponsors | Based on its page on crew united3, the movie was funded by the Polish Film Institute. |
| Award and Nominations | The IMDB page1 shows that this movie has won 2 awards, and nominated for 4 categories. From the crew united page3, it has won 7 awards until now. The description on this YouTube video also shows that this movie is an "Oscar-Shortlisted Film". |
| Viewer Discretion |
|
My Review
Theme, Background
The short movie revolves around Julia as the most-main character. She is a maid in a small motel. She has a colleague named Renata. One night, she met a man named Bogdan in a bar. This one encounter dominoed into more encounters, which ended up as her waiting for another encounter as a date with Bogdan, four days after their third meeting.
As someone who never had sex in her lifetime, this chance ignites hope in her. She became curious on what to prepare, what dress she should wear, what style should her hair be, and more. She even longs for Bogdan for days, as all of these expectations keep building up inside her.
Unfortunately, all of these hopes were crushed after she had her first time.
Characters, Story Flow, Dialogue, Point of View
Characters
The main character in this movie is Julia. She is our main focus throughout the movie. Aside from her, Renata and Bogdan also played an important role here.
Story Flow
The story goes forward, with no flashback scene at all from beginning till the end.
Dialogue
All characters speak Polish throughout the movie.
Point of View
As we watch, we will see how Julia's story unfolds as the main character. Viewers will see the story goes from "viewer's point of view", or from Julia's point of view.
Conflicts
Well, as stated above in the background, this is quite a story to present, and lately a lot of incidents arose one by one. In list, there are various conflicts happened in the movie:
- The Dress. No one aside from the tailor probably saw Julia as what she wanted to be. I assumed that Renata probably saw her as a colleague, but I am not sure if she saw her as a mere colleague or more than that. Bogdan saw her as trial material. He just wanna know how it feels to have sex with "small person" like her.
- Perception. Even though it's not clear, each character here perceived her as a different person, I think. Julia herself actually does state implicitly throughout the movie of how she wanted to be perceived by others as "someone normal".
- Hope. Julia's hope hits hard on our heart (at least me). Like... How we actually wonder and hope how we should look ideally, and how everything probably could be different if we are not "dressed" like how we are.
Morales or Messages
Life probably could or could not be different if we "dressed" ideally, like how the world runs its course.
Hidden Messages
I think I need to pinpoint some hidden messages throughout the movie, and what I think is also shown on the poster. As these messages are not explicitly stated, I think viewers or readers of this review could think these messages are interesting to read.
- The poster made by Palkiat is super simple, but there is a main focus implied there, IMO. There is a straight pin on the left chest. Which I assumed is where a heart is located at. This could imply one of the messages from the movie itself, how she actually "hurt inside" but no one sees her as herself.
- Even though we have two other main characters (Renata and Bogdan) shown a lot on the screen, none of them actually called Julia correctly. Both use different pronounce, whether it's
- Jula (pronounced as Yoo-la or Yu-la),
- Julca (pronounced as Yool-ka or Yul-ka),
- or even Julcia (pronounced as Yool-Chee-Ah or Yul-Ci-A).
- In the ending, there is a twist, when she opened Bogdan's room, then she saw a naked-tall-blonde-girl lying in the bed. IMO, this implies what she actually hope for, deep inside her heart and mind. How she wanted to "be normal". How she wanted people to "see herself" as her, as a normal person, not as a "different person". Her dialogues do imply these points prior to this ending. Like how after she had her first sex with Bogdan, he stated clearly that this experience is just another "test material", to see how it feels to have sex with "a tiny person" like her. Not what she actually wanted. A pure bliss experience, especially as it's her first one.
mjb tapi ini kayaknya bukan itu deh...
— Adli (@Adli_HM) January 11, 2022
kayaknya ini lebih ke... kayak imaji tersirat bahwa sesungguhnya dia itu pingin tubuh dan "dress" seperti itu. tubuh normal, semuanya normal, dan selesai seks ya dianggap normal.
ga dianggap pelampiasan dan bahan uji coba doang........
Extended Media
There is an interview with the director, which you can watch here:
Interview with The Director
Conclusion
Do I Recommend This Short Movie?
Yes.
It is not superbly good, but as a short movie, it's good.
Aside, the message from this short movie is strongly implied, even though it's not explicitly stated through subtitles or other media on the movie. This movie showed us how we as a human actually wanted to be seen as or perceived as or understand as or acknowledge for.
So for me, I scored this short movie as: