On Fumes – A Review

Connections. They are the building blocks of life. We become who we are because of the connections we make. But connections are not something limited to the living. There is a reason some people get big into ancestry: to connect with their past, but other times, the connections are a little closer to home. On Fumes, from director Zhengyi Liu (Liu co-wrote it with Daniel Weschler), follows a boy as he seeks to connect with the grandfather he never knew by absconding with his old Chevy and his ashes and seeking out sights his grandfather used to take his mom to and wished he’d been able to share with him.

The film is told mostly in voice-over from the dead grandfather and could have wound up overly saccharine. However, it traversed the line well, and pairing the voice-over with images of the boy that were often very comedic, particularly those of him made to look somehow even smaller in his oversized shirt next to the large truck and when he sits on the dock and uses a water pistol to rinse his mouth after brushing his teeth really helped.

The film is at its best when it forgoes the road, filming nature and the boy in action. It is only in shots of the road and in the truck that you become more aware of the artifice of the camera, as shots of the road. However, the film is predicated on the concept of a road trip, so some driving shots were necessary.

The use of props in the film served well to give character to the boy despite him only speaking in one scene, where he bought directions with little pocket change he had, which humorously provided exposition to let us know the plot of the film. That scene also featured my favourite prop, a takeout cup tied around the boy’s neck. This gave a lot of character insight in a small prop detail. The truck he was driving did not have a cupholder, so he made one for himself, it showed that he was innovative and that he wasn’t going to let a roadblock stop him from achieving something. Whether it was not losing his drink or stealing a truck so he could connect with his grandfather.

Often, when I watch short or real indie films, a common problem is the continuity of day. Shadows shift constantly within a scene using natural light. Now, while I did perhaps question how long the day was, especially since we see a scene of the boy brushing his teeth, and yet the sun stays high until the final location, they stayed consistent in each scene.

This film takes a simple concept of a boy trying to build a connection with a grandfather he never knew and tells it with humour and heart. We are never told exactly what happened between this grandfather and the boy’s mother to sour the relationship. We are provided with anecdotes of memories he’s fond of that he suspects she might remember less fondly, but we are not told why because the film is only about a day between grandfather and son, this one moment of connection. It doesn’t seek to erase the past, but it lays focus on the moment at present.