A few weeks back, I criticized a short I watched, “Sweet Caroline,” for being too short. The film was 8 minutes in length, had much more to tell, and was too short. Steve Khan’s independent film “The Opera Singer” is even shorter, closing out at only three minutes, three seconds. But this time, the film is not too short, tells all it has to in it’s minute run-time, and is shot wonderfully and beautifully. Sometimes a short is the perfect medium for a film. In “Sweet Caroline,” it was not. In “The Opera Singer,” it perfectly is.
“The Opera Singer” is directed and written by Steve Khan, who is known for helming some other shorts, such as 2014’s “Fear,” and 2015’s “The Prisoner.” A slight misnomer, the film’s title is not so much a story of an opera singer, but a look at an elderly woman in a nursing home, musing on what her life would have been like had she been an opera singer. The film is tinged with regret, sadness, and, oddly, forgiveness.
The woman is played by an actress named Rena DuShey, and is voiced by Shannon Elizabeth from “American Pie” fame. Both work off of each other in successful ways. DuShey is only for visuals, closeups, or scenes of her working with physical therapy professionals or nurses. This is interspersed with flip-throughs of music books, blurred out notes underscoring the questions she asks herself throughout “The Opera Singer’s” short run.
Steve Khan has also done the cinematography for this film, and it’s just beautiful. Khan seems to know just what he is doing. Scenes of DuShey doing various activities in her nursing home are juxtaposed with insinuations of her abandoned musical career and a score that is equally as lovely as the camera work. I especially liked his use of bright outdoor scenes, shining sun off of surfaces, mixed with lonely shots of a dog that the woman has left behind, still in her thoughts.
The film is constantly narrated by Elizabeth, and done so in a regretful, purposeful way. She’s critical of her life choices. Why didn’t she go to Italy and become an Opera Singer? It takes money, she says, maybe she didn’t want to. And while we suspect that she really did want to, it’s not the point the film is trying to make. Life choices are never as simple as simply doing them, and Khan and Elizabeth imbue the right amount of regret coupled with personal forgiveness to help us understand this.
“The Opera Singer” is not an end in itself, and is not really supposed to be. It’s poetry. It’s a glimpse into this woman’s life, her thoughts, her desires…her regrets. We are meant to feel them, not necessary understand them. The film navigates us through this quickly and successfully, made all the more poignant by its slow, gentle piano score. If you’re looking for plot, for progression, for a point – this film is not for you. The point of “The Opera Singer” is that this woman feels these things, and wants us to feel them too. And it’s done very well.
At the end of the day, “The Opera Singer” works on a number of levels. It’s really short, which makes it very accessible for those who may not usually give shorts a try. It also is beautifully shot and acted, and offers food for thought on life, regrets, and is emotion-laden and poignant. If you’re not into independent films, this may be a good entry point. But those that love indies will find nothing disappointing about this film.
– by Mark Ziobro
