Blight

Directed by Markus Hoeckner from a script co-written with Barkhad Abdirahman (who also plays the role of Abdi), this thought-provoking short sci-fi drama builds a convincing world descending into chaos, deprivation and anxiety as it faces catastrophic food shortages and crop blights brought about by extreme heat. Within this dystopian canvas, a more intimate story of two brothers unfurls with poignancy and then suspense, each representing a different pole of response to the global crisis that envelopes them.

Jamal and his brother Abdi live in a world rife with starvation and violence, and any food or security must be scrabbled for. Their only real solace and anchor are one another. Handsomely photographed, the well-crafted writing and direction are economical in their ability to convey whole worlds with a few telling details, from the rotting of a leaf to the omnipresent sounds of helicopters and gunfire in the distance.

Amid the excellent world-building, careful attention is paid to the brothers’ relationship, especially in the first half’s more poetic, quiet tenor. They’re close and loving as family, but they have different attitudes towards the looming evacuation. Abdi doesn’t want to leave, wanting to honor their Somali parents’ sacrifice to immigrate to a place where they can belong and prosper. He doesn’t want to be part of the government cargo.

But Jamal sees things differently: he wants a better life than the one left to them on a devastated planet. As Jamal, actor Mahamed Salad conveys both the energy of the hopeful and the fear and wariness of the world around him. As an actor, Abdirahman plays his brother Abdi with a world-weary stubbornness, with an older sibling’s air of knowing what’s best. He doesn’t want to change or adapt, and would rather take his chances than face an unknown future. Their touching relationship is the film’s emotional anchor, one that gets tested to the limit within the confines of the narrative.

When Jamal makes his fateful decision, BLIGHT pivots into a more suspenseful, tense register, earning its stripes as a sci-fi thriller with feature-quality storytelling, restrained but heartfelt emotion and a fascinating world that many viewers will want more exploration of. It ends on a devastating note, and something of a cliffhanger that could easily expand into a longer format, one exploring some of the most resonant themes of the short: the tension between change and security, the push to remake and reinvent life as humanity knows it and the role of displacement and disaster in the larger human story.

––Omeleto