No further words. Evening, painful yellow electric glow. A dozen different size tables, chairs, pooficas, painted with deliberate carelessness. Black walls and sudden clouds overhead. Against this background - short scenes involving bizarre creatures, only conditionally anthropomorphic in appearance, but behaving frighteningly recognizable. An ordinary cafe where in the evenings the casual public kills time not so much at dinner as over flirting, gossip, memories, arguments, discussion of the news, empty chatter, quarrels and reconciliations. But at the same time, as the light carefully lit before the credits shows, it is still a theater, in the sense in which our life itself is, of course. Theatre of words.
In her third short film, animator Michaela Pavlatova is true to herself. There is a certain plot that develops with a proper degree of attractive unpredictability: another story for the author of intersex relations, over which the curse of Global Disconct hangs from the creation of the world. But in the first place is a pure idea, embodied in naive, not too attractive and such expressive drawings. Words, words, words. Powerful, empty, gentle, unkind. In a world where whitish conditional people drink mud-colored coffee, conversations play in bright shades, changing, crushing reality. Tomb whispers caress, like a hand, hits the table with an angry cry, flashing in the hands of a merry man colorful balls of sharpness. Say, precisely cut, pour out the soul, catch on the word, freeze - the animator plays with idioms, visualizing them, returning the original meaning. However, it is not pure visualization. The film speaks to the viewer directly, without a language barrier, because there is not a single word in it, except those that can be seen. But each phrase is accompanied by no less universal sounds: the characteristic semantic creak of old furniture, the slurred muttering of the TV, the grinding of the cash register, an exhausting squeal, tender open vowels.
Pavlatova manages moods, subtle emotions, no matter how difficult it is to convey them on the face, where the eyes and strive to settle one over the other. The fullness of this talent, perhaps, will reach in the next film, “Repeat”, whose characters walk around the circle of hopelessness, destined for each other, unable to make each other happy. But in the "Words" through crumpled, like candy wrappers, faces appear interest, embarrassment, fear, call - a soul striving for another soul. Accustomed to the author, rude eroticism here and now is set aside, given to the demand of old men, drooling, discussing “how it was.” It is about love in its first immaculate sense. About a newborn immature feeling, like a fairy-tale princess, able to feel a pea through a hundred feathers, and about an old attachment that has comprehended the science of forgiveness and sacrifice. Undetected, wordless creatures slide between the tables: a brazen red dog stealing food while people's mouths are occupied by another, and a waiter, the only person in this world who humbly accepted his role - to serve others. A cup of coffee to save you from an ambiguous situation. Translated conversation. An important phrase returned to the owner, lost in the noise and bustle. No gratitude, no recognition - our actions are nothing as long as speeches are heard. In the morning he will wipe the tables and turn off the lights. Curtain.