After some persuasion, this blog is starting to review the occasional, exceptional short film, and British film-maker Richard Raymond’s A Million Eyes seems like a good place to start. This blog has been dedicated to giving old, rare, independent and original work a place alongside multiplex blockbusters, and there’s every reason for including shorts under the broad church of cinema.
At 24 minutes long, A Million Eyes doesn’t feel like a short, in that it has a confident, gentle pace and a patient eye for character and setting; it doesn’t feel like a foot-in-the door show-reel, but a story hard won from experience of life. Written by Curt Zacharias Jr, it’s the story of Leroy (Elijah M Cooper), a young man who is struggling to balance his interest in photography with domestic responsibilities, specifically to his alcoholic mother Amber (Katie Lowes).
It’ll play well to a film-making audience that Leroy finds it easier to understand the world through a lens, and when an elderly neighbour (Joe Morton) provides advice on light and stock, there’s a nostalgia for older filming techniques that will strike a chord with many. Raymond has a light touch with scenes that might have seemed didactic in other hands; all the characters are easy to sympathise with and relate to, an uncommon gift in cinema circa 2019.
A Million Eyes is the kind of simple, effective short that’s easy to recommend; played by established actors who get the material, it makes a passionate plea for the next generation to be given a chance, and sets up the idea of older people as role models who have an important job to impart knowledge. For Raymond, early in his career, it’s a work of rare sensitivity that should attract awards, and more importantly, an audience.
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