• Home
  • About Us
  • Submit Article
  • Contact Us
Indie Shorts Mag
  • Home
  • Interviews
  • News
    • Film Festival News
    • Short Film News
  • Reviews
    • Short Film
    • Documentary
    • Web Series
  • Hall of Fame
  • Short Film Festival – 2023Submissions Open
  • Tutorials
    • Pre-Production
    • Post-Production
  • Short Film TVLive
  • Submit Short Film
    • Submit Short Film for Review
    • Submit Web Series for Review
No Result
View All Result
Indie Shorts Mag
  • Home
  • Interviews
  • News
    • Film Festival News
    • Short Film News
  • Reviews
    • Short Film
    • Documentary
    • Web Series
  • Hall of Fame
  • Short Film Festival – 2023Submissions Open
  • Tutorials
    • Pre-Production
    • Post-Production
  • Short Film TVLive
  • Submit Short Film
    • Submit Short Film for Review
    • Submit Web Series for Review
No Result
View All Result
Indie Shorts Mag
No Result
View All Result

Cathedrals: The Mundanity Of Sight

Sristi Gayen by Sristi Gayen
22 Oct 2019
in Reviews
0
Cathedrals - Short Film Review - Indie Shorts Mag

Raymond Carver penned a restless story of a restless man, hounded by his own ravenous insecurities. His short story Cathedral translated to Benjamin Caro’s 21-minute film Cathedrals.

As far as adaptations go, Caro’s short stays laudably true to Carver’s, going so far as to add an original character to voice the protagonist’s textual internal monologue.

Brendan Sexton III’s Phil is a married man, sulking to himself and to anyone who has a moment to spare about his wife’s blind friend who is coming to visit her. Theirs is a friendship spanning over years; they sent each other tapes as spoken letters of sorts. Phil recounts the entire story to his girlfriend, the narrative embodiment of his thoughts. Played by Michele Weaver, Rita is as despicably superficial and crass as the protagonist’s mind was in Carver’s story. 

Cathedrals - Short Film Review - Indie Shorts Mag

Cat (Jessie Lande) shares an empty marriage with Phil, and yet he finds himself insecure and jealous over her friend, Joseph (Rick Boggs). He projects this through a pronounced discomfort and even irritation at Joseph’s impairment. As he drives to a hotel with his girlfriend, Phil recounts and remembers how Cat held Joseph’s sleeve or how Joseph took his drink or said Cat’s name. Joseph’s marriage with a woman who was not also blind is a topic of jokes and curiosity between Phil and Rita. An interesting choice that Caro makes is to give Joseph’s voice a recorded quality even when Phil has met and talked in real life with him, denoting Phil’s unwillingness to let the man into his life. 

Phil never understood Cat’s experience with Joseph, especially a particular moment that was of great significance to her, and it is perhaps this disconnect that contributes to his hostility towards a man he has never met. During Joseph’s visit, Phil has an out-of-body experience of his own with him, which, though he relays to Rita, she does not understand at all. The parallels are impactful, and an addition to the original story. He leaves to go back to Cat, Rita’s last words to him coming as though through a cassette player.  

Cathedrals - Short Film Review - Indie Shorts Mag

Among other and perhaps more important things, what contributes to Caro and his team’s success with Carver’s iconic story is the preservation of the story’s restlessness. With the addition of Rita, the film next preserves the protagonist’s unsophisticated and crass mind that pervades the story. Although here, Joseph does not feel as alien (because we follow Phil’s perspective, no matter how unlikable the character) as Carver made him be. Sexton is a natural and a casting success. As is Boggs. Their climactic scene together evokes a strong, emotive response in a viewer. 

Cathedrals leaves its viewer with a better sense of how Phil has changed than Carver’s abrupt non-conclusion does, and yet while Carver left one with wonderment, Caro chooses to end on an uneasy note, by no means florid. 

Watch Cathedrals Short Film Trailer

  • Direction
  • Cinematography
  • Screenplay
  • Editing
  • Music
Tags: ReviewShort Film Reviews
Previous Post

End Of Summer: The Secret Lives of Parents and Teens

Next Post

Dominant Chord: Contending With The Age-Old Battles Of Success vs Freedom

Sristi Gayen

Sristi Gayen

Related Posts

503 - Short Film Review - Indie Shorts Mag
Reviews

503: A Horror That You Might Wish Upon Some

22nd March 2023
Heather's Voice - Short Film Review - Indie Shorts Mag
Reviews

Heather’s Voice: A Compelling Narrative Of A Futuristic Reality

20th March 2023
Next Post
Dominant Chord - Short Film Review - Indie Shorts Mag

Dominant Chord: Contending With The Age-Old Battles Of Success vs Freedom

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Sponsored

Advertise Here

Featured Post

Announcing Indie Shorts Mag Short Film Festival(ISMSFF) 2022

Announcing Indie Shorts Mag Short Film Festival(ISMSFF) 2022

  • Recent Reviews
Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest Youtube Vimeo

About Indie Shorts Mag

Indie Shorts Mag is a publishing agency that works within the ‘short film circuit’. We review short films, documentaries, music videos and web series, amongst others. We stand out amongst the short film review sites for being multi-diverse & global in our platform and reach.
Our team works tirelessly to help promote, publicize and market your short films that deserve the shout-out! Besides reviews, we host film festival news as it’s a known fact that the film festival buzz is unmissable and we ensure you aren’t left behind!
We aspire to form a niche for ourselves as the ‘short film magazine’ that remains the hub for filmmakers & their audience.

Popular Topics

  • Announcements
  • Articles
  • Crowdfunding
  • Editorial
  • Film Festival News
  • Film Festivals
  • India Edition
  • Interviews
  • Marketing
  • Marketing
  • News
  • Online Premiere
  • Post-Production
  • Pre-Production
  • Reviews
  • Short Film
  • Short Film Competition
  • Short Film News
  • Tutorials
  • Web Series

Indie Shorts Mag on Instagram

Follow Us On Instagram

  • #ShortFilmReview: Order 27: Who’s going to tell Moscow? Read our review and watch the short film. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm
  • #ShortFilmReview: Love You Tyler: They were roommates. Read our review and watch the short film. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm
  • #ShortFilmReview: Sealed boxes meet open books. Read our review. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm
  • #ShortFilmReview: Parasites survive on an illusion of importance. Read our review and watch the short film. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm
  • #ShortFilmReview: What’s charm got to do with it? Read our review. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm
  • #ShortFilmReview: Vacation: If you don’t have the tropics, store-bought is fine. Read our review and watch the short film. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm
  • #ShortFilmReview: La Leyenda del Sombrerón: The hunter of souls stands still, sure of prey. Read our review. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm
  • #ShortFilmReview: Chekhov
  • #ShortFilmReview: Silver Screen Suicide: Reel absorbs the real. Or is it the other way around? Read our review. Link in bio.

#ShortFilm #Review #IndieFilmReview #FilmReview #SupportIndieFilm

© 2015-2023 Indie Shorts Mag.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Interviews
  • News
    • Film Festival News
    • Short Film News
  • Reviews
    • Short Film
    • Documentary
    • Web Series
  • Hall of Fame
  • Short Film Festival – 2023
  • Tutorials
    • Pre-Production
    • Post-Production
  • Short Film TV
  • Submit Short Film
    • Submit Short Film for Review
    • Submit Web Series for Review

© 2015-2023 Indie Shorts Mag.