“Your Smile” by Haochen Yang

Drama genre is the most delicate of all, because it is really easy to fall into clichés. Most of all, it is difficult to be delicate, to really know the psychology of your characters while writing or staging.

In this very good short called “Your Smile”, the protagonist is a boy that refuses to conform with the others by having a phone. He shoots images with a film camera because he believes in the power of images to survive and lock in time a peculiar moment or gesture. Through his camera, he captures the smile of a young girl he fell in love with and among the two a very tender relationship is born.

Shot with a soft and delicate cinematography, its images reflect the inner world of the boy with great care. Directing is straightforward, simple and never overabundant, and editing is correct up to the point where we don’t notice any seams in the narration.

The strongest value of the short lies in the staging of the young actors and in their performance, who really fortifies the values that the scripts wants to express. By being assembled with care and delicacy, this short film succeeds in fleeing the clichés of the drama genre by creating a very believable, tender story that is also full of depth and content.