Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"Jonah" is a 2013 short film that runs for 18 minutes (including credits). It is a co-production between the UK and Tansania, but don't worry: The language in here is only English and the two younger actors come from England too. The older actor does not, but he has no speaking parts really. This description also shows you that the first half of this relatively short movie takes place way earlier than the second half. It is a story about how a certain photograph changed the life and world of two young men completely. And not for the better as we find out at the very end. The director is Kibwe Tavares and writer is Jack Thorne and for both it is among their most known work. Actor Daniel Kaluuya is enjoying a really successful career right now with fairly big parts in films like "Sicario". His two co-leads are not as successful, but still have pretty solid careers as well.I mentioned coincidence already in the title and this is a famous subject in many films and has been so for a while, like Woody Allen's "Match Point". Here it is the story of a fish who randomly appears when a photograph is taken. So far so good. But the fact that the same man runs into the fish decades later and nobody has caught him, maybe even met him until then, is something that has nothing to do with realism anymore. Also the fact that the photograph resulted from a huge coincidence was also something that makes it difficult to care for the two protagonists really as they did not create something for their fame and popularity. And why would they become so famous anyway. I guess only so the filmmaker should show us that it destroyed their bond and friendship. On a more realistic note, nobody really would have cared about them, but all about the place and location instead, which is also true admittedly, but still. All in all, this film has more than a few struggles with story-telling and disappoints way too much in terms of that aspect, especially for a film under 20 minutes. I cannot give it a thumbs-down. Watch something else instead.