Poppies

An American businessman boards a plane, heading back to New York from Shanghai where he has been on business. He’s a busy man, talking on his hands-free, easily switching between English and Chinese.

He takes his seat next to an elderly lady, Cindera Che (“La La Land“, “Walk Of Shame”), and immediately continues working away.

The woman however, isn’t in the mood to sit silently all the way back to America, instead she begins to regale Charles, Matt William Knowles (“Love Me If You Dare (TV)”, “Vikingdom”), with stories of her past, tales of love and opium dens.

Charles isn’t interested, although he does keep getting whisked away in the woman’s tales, imagining her life, her stories as if he were with her, witnessing first-hand.

The woman keeps pressing Charles to tell her about the woman he has, she assumes that some poppies he boarded the plane with are for his wife or girlfriend. But that’s not quite true, and as Charles eventually begins to tell his own tale, it might just change him for the better.

You may remember we reviewed another of writer and director Myles Yaksich’s movies recently, Erin. Despite only having two short films to his name there is a definite pattern emerging in Yaksich’s story-telling.

He loves to whisk you away, placing you into people’s dreams, sometimes as an onlooker, other times from someone’s point of view.

Poppies is no different as we are taken on our own journey into the old woman’s tales of her formative years, the love she gained and lost.

The first time this happens Yaksich pulls of a beautiful shot as we pan through the window of the plane, out into the sky and clouds before heading down to a beach where the story begins. Yaksich pulls off a few of these transition-style shots that are lovely.

Currently, Poppies is being turned into a feature film. I confess I’m not totally sure what guise that will take, but if it is directed as well as the short, I will certainly look forward to seeing it.