This past weekend, I attended a private screening of a new short film by Joseph Ralko. A packed New York City lobby soon became a packed, arm-to-arm New York City theater at Anthology Film Archives, and the buzz surrounding the premiere of this new indie short only grew louder and more enthusiastic with each passing minute.
Before it began, Director Joseph Ralko introduced the film and the cast (Hollywood veteran Heidi Pena, young superstar Lili Buchanan, and the star of Death Suit, the amazingly talented Imani Hanson), as well as some of the key players behind the scenes (Producer Rob Cuollo and Film Editor Natalie Ralko, among others). Ralko and I spoke briefly both before and afterward, and it was abundantly clear he poured his heart and soul into this film. I was fascinated, too, by the way the idea came to him, which he explained in detail after the screening.
So what is this "Death Suit" all about? Well, I was pleasantly surprised, not just by the plot device as a whole, but by the twists within too, and I certainly never saw the unexpected conclusion coming. Without giving too much away, it follows a young boy and his suit, each characters in their own right, and how this very simple outfit affects this little boy so deeply.
The trailer teases quite a lot, but until I watched the film, and saw what the director had accomplished, I didn't fully appreciate the story arc and story depth lurking just below the surface of the title and brief description I'd read online.
It's a film about childhood, but more specifically, it's a film about the mind of a child and all his worries, that you just don't ever see. As adults, we forget where we came from and how we reacted to people and situations when we were little, yet somehow, writer and director Joseph Ralko managed to capture the story from this little boy's perspective in a way I've just never seen done before.
It's a remarkable achievement, and a remarkable film from start to finish. A glimpse of childhood from a child's eyes...in a suit. Run time: 16 minutes. A SIXTOOMANY production.
