PopHorror Let's Get Scared
When I had the opportunity to screen Clementine Orange, I was a little wary. Romance movies combined with foreign films didn’t sound quite like my style. What I found was something easy to follow along with and an interesting story. I think maybe some of us know the danger of being catfished. What would you do if you spent months talking to someone and fell for them? Only to find out that your world just turned upside down? The embarrassment of being rejected and a story fueled by underdogs, which I can easily relate to.
Synopsis
Angelica falls for John, a prisoner she’s never met. But when he’s released for 24 hours, she discovers he’s catfished her. Despite the lie, she gives love a chance — if only for one day.
The Rundown
Young love is pretty weird. We all want to be the person who would fall madly in love. A lot lot of times it works for them. However, a majority of the time, someone is left flabbergasted. I felt for John the entire film; I cheered them on for finding love after an awkward few hours. Clementine Orange gave me the understanding that I was the only one having trouble falling in love, even if it is written in the stars. I felt the pain of someone just trying to find love in their own prison. The film tugs at the heartstrings because you were expecting something that didn’t happen until they finally accepted each other. Then you realize it was true love.
The basics let me figure out the plot without having to read subtitles. You just kind of figure it out. Though the subtitles made me realize it was a simple attempt that worked perfectly, the best I have seen from a different point in the story. Though you knew what was going to happen, the plot made me a little angry at a person who didn’t deserve it. I spent the entire time waiting for the finale of their love. However, in other words, I wanted it to happen sooner.
In The End
When I finished Clementine Orange, I felt a lot different; nothing showed an epiphany that would change my view; sometimes you just find gems in the darkness. I highly respect the work that was put into this film, from great dialogue to an appealing story. In the end, I learned that I should give certain genres a chance outside of The Wedding Singer. I should have known then about the true-love climax; I wasn’t expecting to enjoy every last bit of this film, but somewhere along the line I fell into it.
We all have different tastes; even horror fans have those guilty pleasures. I don’t feel one bit of guilt in saying I enjoyed Clementine Orange. I am not afraid to admit that I did the impossible and enjoyed a film I normally steer clear of. In the future, I plan on giving more movies a chance, even if it’s not my style. I think everyone pops in on these movies while someone is watching; normally it only takes 10 seconds of viewing time, and that was more than enough. Clementine Orange saved my taste buds for great films.
Director’s Statement
With Clementine Orange, I wanted to explore a love story born entirely through letters, photographs and imagination — a kind of intimacy that feels familiar in our digital age. For my generation, the first stages of falling in love increasingly take place on dating apps or social media, before taking the relationship further into meeting in person.
Popular culture has explored this emotional landscape through formats such as Married at First Sight and Love Is Blind. I wanted to translate this phenomenon into a visual, poetic and cinematic space, investigating the fragile boundary between fantasy, desire and reality.
