Dakota is an innocent teen who ends up getting into addiction—addiction to what, exactly, is the rub–in Oren Shai’s pitch-perfect, but unsettling, view of teen life in the 50s as seen through the cracked prism of cautionary “juvenile delinquent” movies of the time.

Sally Conway, whose luninous eyes and angular features reminded me more of a 70s Sissy Spacek than a 50s deb, gives a rich performance as Dakota to compliment Shai’s impeccable production design, as polished as any Hollywood effort.  I was caught up in Shai’s vision from the opening frames, an ominous voice-over accompanied by a squiggly audio line reminscent of Fantasia.

Guil Fisher and Pete Ludovico hand in a pair of memorably offbeat performances, to the point that their characters are hard to describe in this review.

We have reviewed literally hundreds of microcinema efforts at this site, and so many toe the Hollywood line to the point that one often blurs into the next; so when you see a unique vision, it squeezes you right behind the ribs.  And Shai is one of those, dare I say it, visionairies, who from scripting to shooting to post-production is speaking in his own voice.



Heavy Soul had me admiring the sophisticated production elements at the outset, with original lighting schemes and audio design, but the short scratched at my mind for a few days afterward like so few films at any level do.  Elements of after-school special, horror, dark comedy, all percolating under a do-wop beat; a Lifetime movie as directed by David Lynch, with a script by Cornell Woolrich, with a smattering of Russ Meyer and John Waters influences at the back of the palette.

Heavy Soul is the first salvo in what will undoubtedly be an admirable body of work from writer/director Oren Shai.

Four and a half stars.