Sara Eustáquio’s 'Mirror' is that kind of experimental film of which the viewer is free to make his own interpretation of the subject in discussion. Of course, the narrative line is quite simple, but the lack of spoken dialogue and the ultra descriptive actions of the main character are enough to make 'Mirror' the story containing may other stories. We say that because it is something we’ve seen in literature, this kind of fragmentary narrative that can easily make the viewer imagine his own independent back story. As an literary example, we will use Augusto Monterosso’s 'The Dinosaur', an ultra short story that goes like this: “When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there.” This short story, actually claimed to be one of the world’s shortest stories ever written, has thousands of studies and interpretations based upon it, thousands of possible back-stories and possible continuations, and all based on this one sentence that is so powerful and filled with symbolism, a sentence that changed the literary world as we know it.
Being very much alike Monterosso’s short story, 'Mirror' has the ability to make you imagine a possible action that happened right before the young girl found herself alone in the bathroom, having a first encounter with the “woman in the mirror”. Also, the girl before a mirror is the main theme of one of Picasso’s paintings that is quite controversial and, as the short story we talked about earlier, discussed in thesis by many experts.
This short experimental film has indeed many possible interpretations, and the controversy should not be left out whilst talking about it. For us, the whole movie experience was a combination between Bunuel’s 'An Andalusian Dog' with the modern vibe that is prone to produce strange surprises to the chosen ones.
Written by Vlad A. G