When I...

Directed by Elishah St Juste

2021

Kalaya Productions

The directorial debut of Elishah St Juste “When I…” is an 8-minute short film from the West Midlands mixing science fiction with personal realisations about time itself.

We hear a voiceover explaining the beginning of an unknown experiment before we cut to a softly-focused scene of a couple (Elishah St Juste as Adara & Joshmaine Joseph as Solomon) on their wedding day.

As the rings are placed on fingers and vows exchanged, the mysterious echo effect of the pastor’s voiceover adds a sense of ghostly reminiscing of memories gone by. Or maybe dreams to be made?

After more smiles and a celebratory first dance we are moved to a dinner table where the same couple share a romantic meal. The film then speeds up its editing with clips from the happy couple’s life including playfighting and sharing news of a pregnancy.

But the film then takes its audience full circle and we are brought back to the beginning where a lady (Tonia Daley-Campbell) is wearing a virtual reality headset – essentially ‘experiencing’ the life we are currently witnessing on screen.

With good sound editing, split screen visual effects and some snappy editing, the film swiftly moves us in time and space to help explain its narrative.

As Adara goes into labour with her child, the older lady in the headset undergoes her own stresses with similar feelings of pain.

But when the clinic’s specialist (Sarah Feltham) arrives to help, it becomes apparent the lady is in fact an older Adara, experiencing parts of a life missed out.

The director has explained the inspiration for the short came during the pandemic as life “stood still” and many people’s hopes and dreams were put into stasis. And this short film does a very good job of capturing this sentiment.

There are brief cinematic nods to the likes of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind too as it covers issues of the past, love and regret as well as the fluctuating nature of memory itself. And the short twists time and memory both forward and backwards in a way that Christopher Nolan would be proud of.

Life is universally and sadly too short for all of us, but “When I…” successfully explores the choices people make and the importance of what really matters during the time we do have. And with a whole host of interesting ideas and some superb editing all fused with themes of consciousness, we are left with a successful short that lingers long in the mind.

Michael Sales