Faded (2017)

Timeline is a bit confusing, but an overall sweet short film

Overall: This 15 minute short film from Malaysia explores a major challenge to an established m/m relationship. Watched on gagaoolala.

Content Warnings: homophobia

What I Liked
- starts with an established couple
- that they communicate about what they are going to do instead of 1 person just ghosting the other
- cute scenes like at the beach
- the mom's growth

Room For Improvement
- the frequent time skips backwards and forwards made it difficult to know the sequence of events and made it feel disjointed. When the subtitles said Tokyo, Japan they could have also said X weeks, months or years later
- quite a lot of background road noise in a scene towards the end

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It invites us to reflect on homophobia, equality and non-discrimination

'Faded' (淡淡/ Dan Dan) tells the moving story of Tian Yu, a Chinese high school student who lives a secret love relationship with Jun Zhi (Arthur Tan / Jun Yi Tan), a boy with whom he discovered his sexual orientation.
Tian Yu, played by Soo Xu Zhe, a Chinese actor known for his participation in the films 'Do You Love Me as I Love You' (2020) and 'Dear Ex' (2018), is struggling with his sexual identity and finds himself caught between fulfilling his filial duty as an only child and the desire to be honest with himself and his mother (Seck Fook Yee).
Tian Yu's internal conflict worsens when the mother discovers her son's homosexuality, through a photograph that someone secretly sent to her cell phone, and confronts Jun Zhi about the relationship.
However, the mother does not act in a homophobic manner, as she is actually afraid of the repercussions of her son coming out of the closet.
Through his relationship with his mother, Tian Yu will have the courage to face his fears and insecurities, and finally admit to her his homosexuality, in addition to asking her for understanding about his desire to maintain the relationship with the boy he loves.
'Faded' is a small, amateur short film that intimately and emotionally addresses universal themes such as the search for authenticity, personal acceptance and coming of age.
With the message "Love is the same for all genders", it also invites us to reflect on homophobia, equality and non-discrimination.
Released on October 23, 2017 in China, the 15-minute film is written, directed, starring and produced by Arthur Tan Jun Yi Tan, who is also the performer and composer of the eponymous musical theme that serves as the soundtrack. to the short film.

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Not enough In-depth in the Story

This extremely short movie was not what had expected, first off it is literally 15 minutes so its one of those quick watches when you waiting at the train station or something!!

I personnel did not enjoy this, as i felt it left a lot of unanswered questions, and everything was just put together for the sake of it!!

It does explore the homophobia side of things, but again i think this short film could done better if was a more a series, or even a full length movie instead of the 15 minute that I witnessed.

There were some good points to this, as the couple were already in a relationship and how they came to there decision, instead of one making and the other ghosting, the growth of the mom and her acceptance of her sons choice.

But overall Nah this was way too short and it could have done better!!!

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