The end of the world. There lies a couple of bottles of pills with the label of that description. ‘I’ll See You There’ is a short film directed by Moris Zingman, where right from the start, the theme is set about a couple named James and Jess are planning a romantic suicide pact by taking these pills to avoid the impending doomsday of the end of the world.
James is seen drinking a lot of booze and rinsing his head as if it was a metaphor that he is trying to wash away the sins of being on this world, hoping that the doomsday will pass. Jess comes over and they both start to talk about their plans to take the pills as a painless way to meet each other on “the other side”, implying they will be in heaven together.
Before taking the pills, they talked about the ideal situations of faith, hope, and love, and that maybe there is still some humanity left in the world where they can find a reason to live. We hear gunshots constantly ringing out the window from a dark dimly lit room they are hiding from, giving the claustrophobic environment feelings of entrapment with nowhere to go.
At some point they find an abandoned baby, where Jess and James have a discussion on faith. Jess wants to save the baby whereas James just wanted to leave the baby behind to search for something they are looking for. The small conversation they had between the two led to a compromise to bring the baby along, giving some faith in humanity to the viewers. But where there’s a positive light to this, faith gets compromised by an encounter of another individual they encounter, talking about the fear of death. The action this unknown man took afterwards was a symbolism that faith can be taken away anytime.
Hope was the next theme, where they encounter more people on their trek, finding another male, two unknown people in hooded cloaks, and a distraught female who apparently committed a Sin, possibly related to the abandoned baby. The male would indicate that one has to make sacrifices to restore hope in others to allow God to take one into the heavens.
The final theme was love. Circling back to Jess and James and their plan for their suicide pact. The scene itself plays with the idea of whether the suicide pact is considered an act of love or a Sinful act of leaving the world, resulting in no heaven to be found. James can be seen struggling with the fear of leaving the world, possibly thinking there is no real impending doom to leave the earth.
These themes are very dark in nature in how the short film was presented. The scenes of making religious references and considering suicide are the main focus throughout the big decision of moving onto the afterlife. Suicide is a very controversial topic used as a plot device and reason that the option may be necessary due to the impending doomsday that is about to happen. But what stops them from fully committing is knowing that they have to cleanse their Sins before being accepted into the heavens.
This back-and-forth struggle that James had with himself may be a sign that he may have committed more Sins than he could to cleanse himself and leave this world. Maybe he feels that he deserves to be in this current hellhole to suffer for the Sins he has done. Or maybe he believes that there is still time for him to restore faith, hope and love while he is still alive.
The dialogues in the short film are pretty cryptic behind their motivations of suicide and the themes of faith, hope, and love. This might be intentional allowing the audience to interpret their own opinions of what they are observing between the interactions of Jess and James and the few others they encountered.
Sound and music are well used to set the dark undertones of this short film. If you were to watch this in the dark room with headphones on, the sound effects will immerse you into the feelings of discomfort and claustrophobia that the characters are living with in the world’s impending doom.
Overall, the short film may not be for everyone to watch given the sensitive nature of suicide themes throughout the film. Aside from that, it brings out the sadness and loss of faith, hope and love to the viewers that the film intended to convey.