An unnamed man sits at an unmarked grave in a foggy cemetery. Clenching a rose, he looks out onto the foggy horizon. He is dazed, confused, lost. His wife and young daughter arrive at the cemetery, and his daughter tries to convince him to leave the cemetery and come home.
“Cemetery” purports to be a movie about loss, but it really doesn’t say anything. Apart from how people grieve differently, and the effects their grief has on one another, the film has nothing to offer. Consisting of one scene—the short is book-ended by two long shots of a car going to, and leaving, the cemetery—it is made up of wooden dialogue and vague pop philosophy.
The little girl (Lily Simon) is more convincing in her sadness than her father, Bobby DeAngelo, who frees his face of _expression and conveys melancholy by speaking in a low monotone, which makes him come across more as a pederast than a man in mourning.
The cinematography is the saving grace of this short film. Using a foreboding, natural palate, it conveys melancholy and sadness that the film’s content can’t seem to get across. A wasted, yet honorable effort, it is a shame the director didn’t delve into these characters a little deeper. A diamond is buried somewhere in this short, but instead of polishing it, Faust decided to shoot it from a distance, flooding it with light, to create the illusion of illumination.
