Festival Quickies: "Kisses"

Director/Writer Lance Daly knows how to tell a story! Featuring two unknown young actors, "Kisses" takes tween-aged neighbours Kylie and Dylan on a journey to escape trials of a harsh homelife. They hop a barge and sail into downtown Dublin, and their adventure swirls from delirious to terrifying to romantic to melancholy, sometimes all inside a single scene.

My favorite moment happens on the barge where the generous and sympathetic operator pulls out a harmonica and sings his own, gleefully accented rendition of a Bob Dylan song. The boy Dylan, usually withdrawn and morose, stares up at him with an incredulous look, as if it has never occurred to him before that such a person could exist, who lives his life with kindness and exhuberance. Then his gaze shifts to Kylie, maybe realizing that she might be such a creature, too.

Their picaresque tale moves them thereafter from innocence to experience with a twist. Even in their darkest times when they encounter the worst kind of people, they also discover in themselves the best in human nature, and a possibility for real love and self sacrifice.

These young actors are terrific. The photography is as well, combining black & white and color with great effect. The stark, B&W shots of the Dublin low-rental area are beautiful and heartbreaking.