Voiceless, a featured short from director Cindy Di Xin, tells the story of an international high school girl who finds herself trapped in a nightmare that she has never experienced before involving inappropriate attention from one of her teachers. Cindy made this short in Pasadena, California, but it is presented in Chinese and English with subtitles. Despite being a short, this is a measured, layered, and complex piece of art.
The depiction of trauma and its representation through both animation and conventional elements is very well done. Particularly, the use of animation to reflect our protagonist’s inner feelings is an inspired choice. The immediate visual contrast between the animation and the live scenes shows the disconnect between her outward portrayal of her feelings and the things she feels inside.
Before the title card, an intimate placard with the name of the movie written in a style like handwriting, we see our first instance of this. The girl is laying on her bed, gently touching herself, but as soon as she begins to unbutton her shirt, she becomes visibly shaken and does all the buttons up again, even pinning the top one closed. The animation that follows shows her stepping in a puddle and immediately being overwhelmed by a deluge of water. She is drowning and no one knows it. It is clear something has happened to her, but we are not sure of exactly what. It’s apparent that her classmates don’t understand or want to accommodate her differences and her host family does not seem to understand her either.
Her one refuge is painting and art, something it seems she has come to America to pursue by attending school far from her family. The problem, as we find out when she calls her mother, is that her art teacher, Mr. Wilson, is paying inappropriate attention to her, giving her a ride home and drawing a suggestive picture of her. Her attitude seems to indicate that even more happened beyond that. Her attitude and her behavior all indicate she knows something was wrong with what happened to her. She curls in a ball on her bed, scared to leave its relative safety. She calls her mother, wanting to tell her, but is distracted from it by her mother asking about her portfolio and encouraging her to ask her art teacher for help. She is essentially trapped, stuck in an unfamiliar country, speaking an unfamiliar language and at the mercy of strangers. Her loneliness is palpable, especially in the scene where she interacts with her ‘friend’ from school.
The animation scenes continue to depict heartbreaking scenes, blood on her hands, a bird trapped in a net, writhing for freedom, leaves swirling in a heavy current. We never see what happened, but we don’t need to. In the end, even her art fails to provide her with a way out of what she is experiencing. She is simply treading water by avoiding it but to face it directly is too horrifying. What is tragic is that nothing is changed for her by the end. She is still unable to confide in anyone, unable to deal with the reality and at the mercy of her teacher. Her final, awful wail as the shower fails to take away what has happened is haunting and heartbreaking.
Don’t miss Voiceless which is screening at the New Jersey Film Festival as part of the “Shorts Program #2” on Friday, February 3. The films will be Online for 24 Hours and In-Person at 7PM in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ.
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