Reflective Encounters

“A melancholic grace emanates from Sunčica Fradelić’s ethereal While We Were Here. Opening on found footage of an old woman holding a baby, the text on-screen tells us of an unnamed “I” and the pair of shoes they were gifted with by a loved one. That person is no longer here – the text seems to imply – and the “I” hopes the shoes could lead them to wherever the loved one is.

This is the only narrative framework Fradelić offers us, as While We Were Here flips through different mundane vignettes of solitude, caring gestures, and chats among friends. Death always looms over but is openly addressed only once. On a lakeside, two girls remember a near-death incident that happened to one of them, which opens up a brief conversation about what lies beyond life, fear (or the lack thereof), and that peculiar curiosity amongst youths for whom death is often just a faraway destination. All these self-contained, non-descriptive scenes are wreathed together by abstract, coruscated transitions embracing the film with poetic beauty.”

— Ren Scateni