“When the routine bites hard, and ambitions are low, and the resentment rides high, but emotions won’t grow, and were changing our ways, taking different roads, then love, love will tear us apart again”. Sure enough, this quote can easily sum up Shireen Vasseghi’s movie having the same spirit and also the same vibe. From Ian Curtis up to this day there are very few cases when authors of any kind managed to give trauma a face to be reckoned. Many tried, and ninety nine percent of them failed. To make art out of trauma, you really have to either live it or imagine it. If you imagine it, the results may not be the most accurate, and your idea would go on that pile of ninety nine percent; if you lived it, then you’d better be strong, because relieving those moments even in art form may scar you again for life. 

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In Shireen Vasseghi’s case, we tend to think that the trauma comes from that one percent, being extremely well presented and amazingly powerful in the field of emotions. As we watched it, we felt like ‘Velvet Hour’ is a fabulous cocktail of vibes taken out from the Joy Division discography, having many moments when we almost felt Ian Curtis ringing in our ears…”in silence”. We were saying it before - from ‘Love will tear us apart’ we’ve never felt such a strong bond with a work of art regarding trauma and traumatic experiences. The transition between nightmare to reality and then to nightmare again is interesting in this short, as the nightmare is not something dark and violent, but mostly a huge regret and a complete sense of helplessness. The main character has to undergo serious treatment to escape from this looping dream, to come back to his senses and to try and have a normal life.

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We strongly recommend this short from the bottom of our hearts, but try using our unique method: first, watch the movie as it is, and then watch it again whilst listening to ‘Unknown Pleasures’, the album. You will feel a weird sense of joyful claustrophobia.

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Written by Vlad A. G