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★★★★★
Directed by: #ShaneRyan
Written by: Shane Ryan
Starring: #BreKapner, #OliverMorrison, #KaliyaSkyea and #AshleySmith
I bring the jokes right? That’s my whole thing, not the best film critic sure but I might make you laugh, but sometimes, just sometimes, I am given a film that causes me to toss my jester’s hat aside, don my Rodger Ebert tortoise shell rimmed glasses, and be an actual professional.
Filmmaker Shane Ryan brings such a movie to the table, a poetic and visually stunning piece that made me have real feelings inside my heartless soul...thanks Shane.
Short film Paper Kids follows the lives of several teenagers, doing nothing more than going about their day-to-day lives, but their day-to-day lives don’t consist of dinners with the family and holidays to Disneyland [who would want that anyway, giant mice terrify me] but more of isolation, abuse, fear and confusion, these kids are not really living the dream.
Each seems to be introverted in their own way, and this is held up by the fact that Paper Kids has no dialogue, it is just a free-flowing collection of clips that are accompanied by a series of instrumental pieces of music, and that is a bold move from the filmmakers. We are forced to look into the eyes of the subject and study their emotions on a deeper level.
The young people on this film though are victims of that, none of them seem in trouble enough for anyone to act upon it, none of them are screaming for attention, they are just the kind of kids who get swept under the rug time and time again, be it by the authorities, family or even a school councillor. Shane, it seems, is asking his viewer to look a little deeper than the masks they wear in society.
In typical Shane Ryan style this short is beautifully shot, visually stimulating and all done on a shoestring budget, the actors express so much visually you feel wrapped up in their world, a world none of us really want to be in.
This is a short not to be missed, making the viewer uncomfortable yet compelled to not turn away, Paper Kids takes us on a ride through the lonely and isolating world of being a kid on the sidelines.
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