DROBOIVS25

   Posted by: Benjamin Danso - BFATP28004 | 06/21/2025  02:58 PM

   FILM REVIEW: WORK BY: ANEIL KARIA

  DIRECTED BY: ANEIL KARIA
  PRODUCED BY: SCOTT O'DONNELL

Aneil Karia’s Work is a BAFTA-nominated short film that captures an emotionally charged day in the life of a young Black dancer in London. With raw, immersive cinematography and restrained yet powerful performances, the film confronts social tension, internalized trauma, and emotional resilience all within just over 10 minutes. It’s a short film that speaks volumes in silence, rewarding viewers who engage both emotionally and analytically.

From the very beginning, Work grips the audience with a strong undercurrent of unease. The film draws us into the protagonist’s everyday routine boarding a train, walking through the city, attending a dance rehearsal but almost immediately, subtle interactions and glances hint at something deeper beneath the surface. When the story takes a sudden turn during a disturbing encounter on the train, the viewer is thrust into the protagonist’s experience of fear, helplessness, and frustration. The emotional impact is palpable. There is no need for exposition the film shows us how the threat of violence, especially racialized and gendered violence, permeates even the most mundane spaces.

The film’s central message revolves around emotional endurance in the face of invisible and visible aggression. It asks the viewer to consider what it means to carry pain into every space into your work, your art, your daily interactions and how expression can become a form of survival. Rather than resolving with a tidy narrative arc, Work ends with a quiet but powerful emotional release through movement, signaling not closure but continuation.

The performances are essential to the film’s success. The protagonist, played with haunting precision, says very little but communicates everything through posture, breath, and movement. Her reactions restrained but resonant make the viewer feel her isolation and frustration. The aggressor on the train, by contrast, is unsettlingly believable, representing how real-world antagonists often appear: loud, unapologetic, and disturbingly comfortable in their aggression. Even secondary characters, like the passive commuters, contribute meaningfully to the narrative by reflecting societal complicity.

Visually, the film is a masterclass in restrained cinematography. The handheld camera closely tracks the protagonist, placing the audience in her immediate physical and emotional space. One of the standout sequences is the long, uninterrupted take inside the train carriage. It captures the rising tension in real time, making viewers feel trapped with the characters. The final dance sequence deliberate, expressive, and unfiltered uses motion and framing to communicate what words never could.

Sound and music also play crucial roles in shaping the experience. The lack of score for much of the film allows natural sounds train brakes, murmurs, footsteps to dominate, emphasizing the film’s grounded realism. When music finally does enter during the dance, it feels like a dam breaking. The score doesn’t just accompany the dance it completes it, transforming movement into emotional testimony.

Overall, Work exceeds expectations by showing how much power a short film can hold. Its greatest strength lies in its restraint. Rather than preach or dramatize, it quietly immerses us in the lived reality of someone who endures emotional labor daily. Its only potential weakness may be its brevity; viewers may find themselves wanting more background or resolution. However, that ambiguity mirrors the real world, where trauma doesn’t resolve neatly.

The film evokes a range of emotional reactions anger, empathy, anxiety, and finally, cathartic release. It is absolutely a film worth recommending, not only because it’s technically and artistically impressive, but because it opens a window into emotional and social realities that are too often overlooked. Work leaves a lasting impression not because it shouts, but because it listens deeply and asks us to do the same.

 

The short film Work by Aneil Karia offers a powerful, intimate portrayal of a young Black woman navigating the emotional weight of urban life, institutional oppression, and personal identity. Using the "Story Arrangement" structure comprising a protagonist, goal, antagonist, struggle, climax, and resolution this essay explores how Work constructs a compelling and socially resonant narrative.

At the center of the story is the protagonist, a young dancer, portrayed with quiet intensity by Tia Bannon. The camera follows her through a single day, capturing the nuanced shifts in her emotional state. Though she says little, her body language and facial expressions speak volumes. She is not only the narrative focus but also the lens through which the audience experiences the oppressive world around her.

The goal of the protagonist is not a traditional, external mission. Rather, it is deeply internal and emotional: she seeks a sense of peace, stability, and self-expression in a world that constantly tries to suppress her. Throughout the film, her desire to maintain composure and reclaim control over her emotions and identity becomes increasingly evident. Her dance, rehearsed silently and expressively, reflects a longing for release and self-definition.

The antagonist in Work is not a single individual but a complex societal force systemic racism, cultural repression, and institutional authority. These forces manifest vividly during a pivotal scene on the London Underground, where the protagonist witnesses the aggressive arrest of a Black man by police officers. The officers, representing a system rooted in racial profiling and dominance, enforce their authority with brutality, while the public remains passively complicit. The "set principles" of this antagonist lie in its unspoken rules: maintain silence, do not resist, and suppress emotional response.

Despite this, the protagonist is willing to struggle. Her day is a constant act of emotional restraint, navigating microaggressions and witnessing injustice. Internally, she battles the urge to react to scream, to cry, to move while externally, she remains composed. This tension between restraint and expression builds throughout the film, showing her strength in containing pain and anger that society deems unacceptable.

The turning point, or the “win or lose it all” moment, comes when she finally allows herself to break down. In a raw, cathartic moment, she dances violently, expressively, and without inhibition. Her body, which had been stiff and suppressed for most of the film, now becomes a vessel for rage, grief, and liberation. This moment is not only emotional but symbolic: she refuses to be muted. Her dance is both breakdown and breakthrough.

Finally, although the film does not offer a traditional resolution, it resolves the difference in principle through emotional truth. The protagonist cannot dismantle the oppressive systems around her, but she finds a way to confront and survive them

Link to watch the full film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkqgjsMDYho 

#VisualStorytelling #IVS2025 #UniMACIFT

Posted by: Benjamin Danso.   06/21/2025  02:58 PM