(courtesy Little Black Book Online (c) Sye Allen)
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Light Hearted, a new short film from director Sye Allen, is a poignant look at what happens to life once it has been touched by grief. Joy, a widow, has her own routine in place. It’s a quiet life with the absence of her husband in the room felt from moment to moment, even while warm afternoon light floods the room. One day, Joy – portrayed by Gillian Wright – receives a strange, unexpected delivery. It’s a piece of technology with the ability to project a version of a departed loved one into the room, like a hologram that can speak and interact but has no material form. It’s a facsimile of a life now gone, providing some comfort while exposing how technology will likely alienate too in its aim to ‘fix’ grief or remove the sensation from us altogether. (courtesy Little Black Book Online)
One of the latest releases from DUST, curated narrative short film channel [dedicated to presenting] thought-provoking science fiction stories, Light Hearted does a beautiful job of exploring what grief is, how hard it is to move on from it (spoiler alert: you really don’t; it just gets easier somehow to handle it) and how emerging technologies might change the way we deal with the dearly departed.
Created by DUST community member, Sye Alen, interviewed by Little Black Book Online, Light Hearted gives a widow, Joy (Gillian Wright) an unexpected chance to say goodbye to her dead husband (Simon Greenall) with a conversation that is touching, real, robust and authentically real.
It’s funny and poignant, and really gets to the heart of how we can get lost in grief and how, hard though it is to do, we need to move on and find a way through life that isn’t hostage to the past.
It doesn’t come without its challenges, and while technology will likely offer us new ways to process grief, it still remains a very real and human thing and not an easy road to travel at all.