Teenage filmmaker Caleb Reese Paul has made something quite extraordinary with the riveting The Lake in the Sky. From the first second of this deeply textured 17-minute short film, you are thrown into a thoughtful and reflective film.
Warren (Caleb Reese Paul) is an isolated and grieving teenager who has found himself spending more and more of his time in a small cabin in a wooded area near a lake. One day, he meets Sarah (Maxine Wanderer), who is grieving a friend. Warily, he shows her what he has been doing in the cabin, building a way to go back in time using memories to revisit past moments in nostalgia.
Memories can be that double-edged sword for us all, they can bring us back to the best moments in our lives, and they can also force us to relive moments we want to forget; for Warren, he wants to relive those better times, to remember a time when the pain they are feeling now wasn’t there, to be clear and free and to just live. But sadly, as they learn, life is not like that, pain is coming for us all in some form, but it is how we hold onto those memories and move forward that defines us, even when we can’t seem to make that step forward.
That is where Sarah is in her life; she can’t forget her friend, is too pained to even consider putting that next foot down and trying to continue on without her friend in the world, so when she encounters Warren and his machine, she does what comes naturally to her upon revisiting those last moments with her friend, she tries to interfere. She knows she shouldn’t, but sometimes you can’t help it. Certainly, many would do the same as her despite the strict warnings not to.
The Lake in the Sky is tremendous, utterly tremendous from top to bottom. It’s perfect. There is a sort of magic to it as we listen to Warren’s thoughts on memories and nostalgia; you are captivated by what is being shown to you by multi-hyphenate Caleb Reese Paul. This short film is extremely layered in its themes, but the one that hits a chord is grief and how one handles such a thing, especially at an early age in life.
Being a teenager and losing someone, a parent, a friend, or whoever is tragic, we are not emotionally ready for such a thing and usually need someone there to guide us. But what happens if no one can help you? You drift, you become insular, or you strike out. We see little snippets of this in The Lake in the Sky. Warren has stunted his emotional development because of that desperate clinging to his memories. Sarah is angry about her more recent loss, so we get that first scene of the two together. It’s equally fascinating to see a script with this emotional depth and clear intent for a short like this.
Then we come to our two young leads, who only increase how mesmerised you are by the film. The fact the two are playing grief in differing ways allows us to see the strengths in each of the performances, Wanderer paints a raw and pained performance as Sarah, you feel for her, yet you sense no one has gotten their arm around her to help, she has been left to drift to the side in her grief. So everything, especially Warren and what is in his cabin, is filled with mistrust, and it is only at the end that she realises she isn’t as alone as she thought she was. It’s an extremely strong performance from the actress.
Equally, Caleb Reese Paul gives a subtle, filled performance as Warren. A teenager who is content to go back and watch those moments with his father again, even if it means he is just a bystander watching from afar. Yet there is a weight to the performance, a dulled pain of a boy who has lost someone vital to him far too soon. His and wanderers are heartbreaking, and if, like me, you have encountered such tragedy at a similar age, then its pain resonates far deeper than you would care for it.
That is the skill of The Lake in the Sky, it embeds itself within you, even in just 17 short minutes. Sure, it has a dreamy, almost fairytale sense to it. Yet, the focus on grief, identity and growth from loss weighs heavily on proceedings and makes everything within it feel almost too real for comfort. You feel so much for these two characters, and you immediately understand their situation. Yes, sometimes retreating is the best form of emotional and mental defence to such pain. Still, it can’t be a permanent option, not really.
I couldn’t recommend this enough. Luckily, it is showing on Omeleto now, so it is linked below. Watch it; it’s not one that you will regret giving up your time to. I could talk for an age about what there is to love about this film, from that score to that dreamlike cinematography; it’s just that good. But for now, I will leave you with this. It is always easy to say a specific film is someone’s “breakout” and think nothing of it afterwards. Still, after watching The Lake in the Sky, you can’t help but pronounce it and feel safe in the knowledge that spectacular things are coming Caleb Reese Paul’s way as a filmmaker, for he has truly made an astonishingly good film that you can only applaud. Sensational.
★★★★★
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