Reflective Encounters

“There’s a creeping slowness to At Little Wheelie Three Days Ago. The camera pans at an agonisingly glacial pace that allows us to take in the entirety of the suburban landscape, certain of some impending disturbance to the status quo. Such is the style of Filipino-American writer-director Andrew Stephen Lee, showcasing a confident control of the cinematic form. The almost claustrophobic matted aesthetic is brilliantly rendered in 1:1 aspect ratio by cinematographer Andrew Cristen Crighton and woven together by editor Carlo Francisco Manatad.

The film focuses on the couple Pons (Mark Borkowski) and Lilith (Mardy Ma) who live within this tightly-held world. They receive a video of a mysterious white van which appears to be related to their daughter, Mary. The entirety of At Little Wheelie Three Days Ago feels enigmatic, with Lee and co-writer Chuko Esiri choosing to show rather than tell as the short narrative appears to sprawl out in a mode akin to slow cinema. It considers the impact of filming and communication on human lives in the subtlest manner, but still manages to capture the existential enormity of those ripples.”

— Lillian Crawford