Embers & Dust (2016) Short Film Review
One of the contributions to the DUST sci-fi shorts series this year, Embers & Dust was an enthralling eleven minutes and worth every second of it. Directed and conceived by Patrick Biesemans, this mini-movie is elegantly filmed and smoothly acted out. The use of actual audio from the golden-voiced Orson Welles’ 1938 radio presentation of War of the Worlds was brilliant and sharply effective.
It’s a very fresh concept with the majority of the story taking place during the run of Welles’ broadcast. Despite the great originality, it does fall into several of the sci-fi cliches such as the cornfield (which I’ve noted in numerous other science fiction films) and, obviously, the threat of an alien invasion. But after watching it, you will say to yourself, “Wow! Someone had to come up with that, and it was great!”
The beautiful retro home radios were amazing props and really helped in setting the period in which the movie takes place. (Since most of it takes place in the forest and countryside, the radios and the audio quality of the broadcast are some of the telltale signs which can identify the historical period.) The innocence of a child is seen facing on an alien organism, and from that point on he is utterly enamored with the heavens above his head.
Embers & Dust authentically reproduced some of the emotions that would have been evoked from Welles’ listeners back in 1938. But the film goes a step further. If you know your history (and/or have some powers of deduction), you know that Martians didn’t come and demolish our cities in the thirties. But in Embers & Dust, Biesemans is proposing a “what if.”
What if there actually was more to Welles’ broadcast than what went into the history books? Or, even more ironically, what if there had been an alien invasion the very night of the broadcast which Welles knew nothing about? It’s a fascinating idea to explore in science fiction. And it has an ending we seldom find in the typical action/adventure sci-fi of today.
