Review of Althea Rao’s Three Seasons
Written by Jared Milburn
Developmentally Edited by Jessica Gibbons
Copy Edited and Posted by Megan Elias
Three Seasons (2018). 21 mins. Directed by Althea Rao. Featuring Vanita Karla and Guillermo Alonso. Experimental, Fantasy, Narrative Film.
As the title would imply, Rao’s Three Seasons is all about time. The story is inventive, thoughtful, and artistic in its approach to enticing the audience to step into its world.
This is a place where time is influenced by where you live. We follow the story of a young woman, Freya, who is trying to reconnect with her cousin she hasn’t seen since Freya’s mother’s funeral. The thing is, her cousin Elliot happens to live in Cloudville, a town where inhabitants only experience two seasons each year. Not two seasons as far as wardrobe changes or temperature-related dessert choices, but two seasons as in the people of this village hibernate. Due to bloodlines and magic geography, the citizens of Cloudville have a biological clock that activates and unthaws a sort of coma-like consciousness during three months out of the year.
As Freya enters the city, we see a few people outside—some sitting alone, others standing in groups—then I noticed, the people of Cloudville are literally frozen in the streets! Also, important to note, they are all draped in black zorro-style capes and hats.
Whatever you might be thinking, I’m sure we’re experiencing it together… and it gets better. the town is quite charming, it seems like a rustic, European village with stone brick pathways and candle lit street lamps.
There’s a scene where Freya sits on a bench deep in thought, where we see a few pigeons about to eat on the sidewalk— but they’re frozen too. This scene is not only visually awesome, but it also feeds heavily into the theme of isolation Three Seasons so endearingly hurdles us into. Of course, it’s interesting to see other humans cinematically frozen in the streets due to time parallaxes/concerns, but we still have to consider the level of human existence regarding isolation. We’re social creatures, and even use silence in some forms of punishment in our society. Rao wittingly explores this concept, even if only briefly, so we can see that whatever is going on, the effects are way larger in scope. The birds being frozen tells us an entirely different thing; it’s not just human, this is a world event.
The music is atmospheric, the score blends into the film’s visuals beautifully, and it really helps us to empathize with Freya. It was eerie, cold sweat and pin drop quiet, empty. In her shoes, I would’ve walked out. Let’s still remember the frozen caped denizens in the streets.
But back to the cousin…right.
She tries speaking to one of the townsfolk, asking for directions to Elliot’s address. As expected, nothing. With only a note and a picture, she ventures on to find his house.
Freya eventually comes across a house that seems familiar to her in this world that feels so topsy turvy, then she walks in. As she goes through the house, we see a man laid out on the floor. She sets her things down and helps him to a bed, carrying him up the stairs to a room nearby. He seems to have been passed out for a while. After she makes sure that he is settled, she keeps exploring the house and uncovers some pictures of his family. The resemblances are uncanny.
The unconscious man from earlier appears and makes himself known: it’s Elliot. He apologizes for not being able to greet Freya into town, and explains that the frozen season has already claimed him. We learn that due to his half-Piyan blood (Piya being a nearby city), Elliot is only affected by the biological Freeze for half of the day during the frozen season. Freya is full Piyan and completely unaffected. By this point we can infer the frozen season is no different than a summer, spring or autumn, but a natural process depending on where you are (geographically) occurs out of your control.
After a bit more dialogue, we follow Elliot as he ventures outside the home. We see him carrying a long torch and meddling with the street lanterns. Apparently, Elliot lights the street light candles for the town every night, even though he’s the only one in the village that notices.
He feels lonely.
In an attempt to connect with him more, Freya on a few occasions tries to just talk to Elliot, but they were unable to find that moment to help them “click.” Their interactions felt really awkward, and it felt like neither of them were ready to open up to each other. I guess there were too many questions of the past, how their parents were both present and then not. There were questions of infidelity, families that moved and names and titles that would confuse anyone trying to keep up. Overall, they both had a lot to talk about but not necessarily the time or will to do it.
The characters in Three Seasons, were almost disallowed to process their past, and it really dominates the narrative of how they are handling the present. Some questions are still unanswered, and you can feel that. You can feel the unease and disappointment that Freya and Elliot both feel. Rao allows us to go along the journey of understanding together with them, and you feel just as confused as they are.
Because of this focus on the past, I found myself questioning how everyone’s worlds might overlap. That is, we may be moving at different paces through life in more than just the physical. And that is an interesting take, not just the idea that our worlds could be different, but how our similarities might actually give more voice to how and why we are different.
Elliot seems content with his way of life. Freya, on the other hand, seems distant and put off by her childhood village. To me, the underlying theme was exploring how one looks at a situation and its deeper connections. That’s the magic of Three Seasons, an engaging story with an incredibly lively backstory, and then we’re left with the task of defining which moment was more important. We are trying to understand our protagonists and observe their relationship with each other, but it’s just all so complicated. How do you build on a rocky road? And is there even time to?
What are Freya and Elliot about to do? What are they doing? What they have done? By the end of the film, those linear sounding questions pop up quite often, but what really happened!? That seems to be where the true answers lie. Was I more sure about the course of events the first time I watched the film? Or am I more confident a few tries in? All I know is there is something I need to know, and the content is interesting enough to me that I keep thinking I’ll find my answers if I just watch it one more time.
Another credit to Rao’s direction, I loved the use of text at the beginning of the piece to help shape the story together. The words are twisted and curved, they hold no particular line spacing or magins. It’s Alice in Wonderland-ish mixed with the adult sincerity of the twilight zone. Combined with the films other elements, overall, everything was well done.
The sounds of Three Seasons were “otherworldly” and atmospheric but didn’t take away from the natural feeling of the environment. Most of it seems to be based on a very quiet intimate soundscape. The village is quiet, thus every interaction of sounds feels more rich and engaging. There are moments of a soundtrack but most of the audio we hear are light steps as they walk outside, silverware lightly scraping against plates as they eat, small creaks in the floor as they move—it feels like you’re sitting in an empty library during the day. There are people, but somehow the silence is unnatural. Expected, but still unnatural. It feels so off-putting at first, but once my mind adapted to it, the silence felt more comfortable and the sounds felt alien. Some things make sense and some things don’t, but I think that’s the world itself and in that way it’s kind of beautiful.
The entire piece feels like a poem, or a lesson to be learned. I enjoyed watching Three Seasons, and I’m sure we’d have an even better time discussing it. Just set a place and time! If there’s ever a sequel, I’d love to see what happens next, if we hadn’t already seen it somehow…
Learn more about Althea on her Instagram and website. Learn more about Jared by visiting his profile.