Review: Vera (2008)

Directed by: Thomas Korthals Altes | 10 minutes | short film | Actors: Bien de Moor, Raymond Thiry

“Vera” is an intimate film about a lonely woman who brings a vagrant into her house either out of loneliness or out of goodness. Yet the fear is so high that she does not dare to make contact with him. Whether she’s afraid of men in general because she’s been through things or if she’s just afraid of this bum is unclear. The chocolate that Vera keeps eating at work seems to become the bond between these two strangers. The love of chocolate eventually brings the two closer, but will they ever speak to each other? It is nice to see how a director manages to make the viewer feel for Vera in ten minutes. This woman so desperately wants to contact and tries so desperately not to make contact with the strange man she has brought into the house. The film has been kept small, without dialogue. The acting can only be read from the faces and that makes it so special that the camera positions and the facial expressions of the actors manage to create a good and credible story.