A personal reaction, probably, I want to note, uneducated--my credentials are only as someone who has watched a lot of stuff, and not as anyone with any real expertise in, or even knowledge about, independent filmmaking.
So first. I was initially a little impatient at the lingering in the fist shot, in spite of the inherent interest of a pretty girl her underware. Impatience is not a criticism--some, I think, is a prerequisite for suspense, and maybe even for interest.
My next impression was that I feared this might become, for me, uninteresting. Young people wrestling with self-contempt, with their inner psyches, is not my favorite genre. It can easily seem a little self-obsessed, even sophomoric, maybe even, a little, repellant. Because I do this kind of stuff--self-analysis, self-castigation--by myself, to myself, all the freaking time. And so, understandably, I get a little sick of it.
But this didn't last long. I was drawn in. This was going to be something more.
Which brings my to me third impression--your actress. To call her "a pretty girl," I soon thought, was inadequate, was an understatement. Interested, after the first viewing, I looked up Maritsa van Etserson, seeing that she was a 2021 Miss Belgium finalist, and had appeared in a long-running Belgian cop show--Echte Verhalen: De Buurtpolitie (Real Stories: The Neighborhood Police)--as well as in your short, The Last Day. (Is there any place to watch this?)
Anyway, The multiple Maritsas--underware, white T-shirt, black dress--debating, demeaning, defending, very quickly become not tiresome, but mesmerizing. The work, here, between actress and director, just works. I started to care about her, and was pleased that there was a little turn, from self-contempt towards some kind of self-redemption. I was relieved, happy, when she inhabited herself and was able to get out of the tub, in the (I don't want to use the word) S-word scene. The blending, in this scene, was beautiful and moving.
And the final, I guess fourth, unifying Maritsa, at the end, in that cheerful modest colorful blouse, was a kind of resolution that I felt, even if I didn't immediately comprehend it in its totality. Which is good. I want to watch it again.
And the song, the refrain:
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes.
It was always you that I despised.
I don't feel enough for you to cry,
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes.
as it creeps in, and back in, resonates, is affecting. It's pretty, melodious. "Haunting" seems cliched, but something like that. I guess just this: in words, in music, in performance: I liked it a lot.
The only thing that I thought might be worth re-considering is the Mother lines. I assumed Mother was real, not metaphorical, and if so, I'm not sure I needed an explicit reason for Maritsa's mental/emotional state. Not sure I needed, specifically, the line: "Mother she was a bitch." Maybe I'm wrong, but since you still might give this another pass, it might be something to think about. I'm not sure if it fits the intense and unified tone of the whole film.
A final comment on Maritsa van Etserson. I got a feeling, like I got with, say, Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation, of something like: this woman has it. It being star-power. And this is a testament to both actor and director.
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