Through Hell: The Ghost of the Past and the Power of the Present

Film Review: The Colors of Redemption 

The central character of the film The Colors of Redemption is a young man named Ivan who is in a dire situation. He works in a restaurant, is at risk of losing his job, and appears to be on the verge of a breakdown. In cinematic dramas, characters facing crises such as poverty or internal struggles—like doubt, fear, or moral conflict—are often designed to be complex and multi-layered to provoke thought in the audience. These crises not only shape the story's background but also serve as tools for exploring the character's psychological depth.

As an African-Italian in Italian society, Ivan deals with various issues that the filmmaker addresses only through fleeting references, leaving some of these problems for us to contemplate ourselves.For example, one can imagine that a person perceived by many as a foreigner feels judged differently than local citizens.Another area of ​​psychological exploration leads us to the character's internal battle.Ivan, who in the opening scenes appears to live in total isolation, must essentially endure his difficult emotional state within his current fragile position. In these harsh current conditions, the impact of the character's past cannot be ignored, and he seems to be haunted by the ghost of the past.

Such a situation and character require a calculated and active performance from a clever actor.What catches our attention from the very beginning is the ability of the film's director, Isabella Nwamaka Mascarin, to draw a performance out of Michael Moses Dodi in the role of Ivan. Playing such a role requires, above all, great attention to the psychological details of the character. It involves how such a person hides their internal mental struggle from those around them in difficult emotional times.His acting must have two sides: the effort to maintain appearances while simultaneously conveying the feeling to the audience that Ivan is actually suffering.

The actor has handled this task well, and the director, noting her actor's ability, captures him in medium shots and close-ups to allow him to familiarize us with the character's inner world through his facial expressions. In this successful collaboration and combination of director and actor, what is very important is a proper understanding of the character's background and current situation.Staying in a hostel, he struggles with financial problems while the image of his dark past does not leave his sight.Therefore, he is under intense pressure both physically and mentally, and meanwhile, we have seen traces of his dream—his internal desire for success.

The writer, Isabella Nwamaka Mascarin, starts from a simple situation—a young man having trouble at work—and expands the atmosphere from this simple starting point until she reaches his past, his relationship with his mother, and his moral and financial crises.This expansion happens so smoothly and skillfully that it resembles the natural flow of Ivan's life. By showing the social grounds for the formation of delinquency, the film points to the complexity of the situation and avoids a one-dimensional view of things and relationships. In fact, it is clear that the director sees Ivan's situation as far too complex to simply assign blame to family, class, social status, or even society.

Ivan is stuck in a situation where various factors are decisive, and one cannot easily gain control over other elements by changing just one of these factors. The filmmaker's strength lies in creating all these theoretical and abstract discussions through images and the language of words.The director knows that, above all, she must tell a story and exercise an honesty in storytelling that the viewer can immediately connect with. In an age where the volume of everyday images has increased insanely, exercising balance and creativity in advancing the narrative through visual language—while simultaneously creating believable and tangible situations—is a difficult task that Isabella Nwamaka Mascarin handles well.

Without wanting to delve too much into various details, or overdoing the depiction of poverty, the filmmaker confronts us with the image of poverty. Without wanting to dissect broken family relationships, she uses the power of simplicity and minimalism flowing through the film to bring us face-to-face with the lost relationship between Ivan and his mother. One of the hardest parts for short films not based on a twist ending is reaching an engaging conclusion that can resolve all the opened themes of the film while showing us aspects of the subject we hadn't considered during the story.Indeed, for a film not based on surprise and an ending shock, the conclusion is a vital component.

The writer and filmmaker must be able to move the character along their path so that when we reach the end, they have brought the character to an acceptable point and achieved a satisfactory result in terms of concepts and themes. The Colors of Redemption has an engaging and attractive ending. It is an ending that both brings the character to an acceptable certainty in their path and does not forcibly close the open themes of the work. Forcing those themes closed is equivalent to destroying their realistic aspects.

In the end, the filmmaker does not tell us that the character's financial problems have ended, that he has reached a point of trust in his relationship with his mother, or even that he has found a job he likes. The filmmaker's intelligence lies in going after the character's dream, his concern, his power, his interest, his strength, and something that could one day be the factor of his success: graffiti. What the filmmaker does by placing signs in the film is truly admirable. Having shown a sign of graffiti earlier, the filmmaker returns to this sign at the end and places the conclusion at a point where the main character, Ivan—tired of the dire conditions and painful complexities of his past and present life—takes refuge in his point of strength: drawing graffiti on city walls.

The film ends with the character's hope and motivation without the ending being fake or artificial.The film does not reach a happy ending, but its conclusion is of a hopeful and believable nature.The Colors of Redemption is the kind of work from which one can learn important points about minimalism, one of which is addressing the character's concerns and issues without overdoing the various dimensions of each subject.The film's minimalism is appropriate and measured; the character development, the building of his world, and finally reaching a believable ending are its strengths.