“‘Passive Voice” by Da Qin

Da Qin’s gaze on love and youth is a delicate and intimate gaze, halfway between glamor and naïf, which is articulated on shots and editing ideas so original that this film looks like a kind of diary of fantasies and confessions. While Su, the protagonist of this story, wanders the streets of LA, still shaken and in pain, we realize that after all this city seems to close itself on the feelings of those who live there, as if it were a place of the mind in which the streets unfold to offer our soul an escape route.

“Passive Voice” is first of all a visual story, purely cinematic, which finds its true poetics in its staging and style. The camera seems only to skim over places and landscapes and at the same time try to penetrate beyond the protagonist’s gaze, in search of his true thoughts. Cinematography and a certain flair for scene construction reveal Qin’s deep love for cinema, which consistently provides inspiration for some visual inventions. At the same time, however, it is necessary to strongly underline the great stylistic and poetic identity of this short film, which make it a real intimate projection of its director, Da Qin, who for this reason can be defined, without a shadow of a doubt, a true author. .