Cycles: Muted Trauma in the Face of Frenetic Violence in a Drama of Performances

Alex Eskandarkhah’s 20-minute Cycles finds one character reaching towards redemption and another discovering the comfort of a stranger offering a safe space, however precarious. 

When Jerome’s (Andre Kelly) evening at home is disrupted by his wayward washing machine, only to also be betrayed by the bill changer at the local laundromat, Jerome finds himself at the mercy of Sandra (an arresting Kat Khan), a flirtatious woman who immediately has him in her debt. 

It could easily be the premise of the porn that Jerome was going to devote his evening to. Instead—and despite the flirtation—both seem to recognise the sadness in the other. What starts out as a tentative meet-cute becomes an impromptu “therapy session” as a cover for vulnerability at the film’s midpoint. 

At times, it feels as if the film poses Sandra, an actor, to function as a screen and conduit for both characters’ wretched misery. Her words twist in her mouth and her muscles move as if rubbing raw against sandpaper—the air, overall, of a being brought to the edge of consciousness by profound agony. 

Though Jerome initiates it, the spell cast on the two of them—and us—is almost entirely Sandra’s work. The editing keeps cuts to a minimum so as to maintain the integrity of the camera’s intimate view of this liminal relationship. 

But as the plot breaks it up with unceremonious disruption as of a lightning strike with the appearance  of Sam Asante, pieces fall into place to deepen the slow heartbreak the two characters were revealing to each other. 

The knife is given a twist more as Cycles rolls towards its end and you are left to mull over everything Sandra said, not because you are surprised, but because other people’s tragedies sometimes only take on shape when it shows up at our door in its full, undeniable reality. 

Watch Cycles Short Film Trailer