Oasis

There’s many a film out there which trades on nostalgia for the last innocent summers of childhood, before the responsibilities of adult life set in – a time for playing with friends, enjoying the simple pleasures that the world has to offer. This Oscar-shortlisted short documentary by Justine Martin makes use of the visual language of that type of work, but touches on something different, more meaningful, as it explores the story of twin brothers Raphaël and Rémi.

This is a summer for fooling around on mopeds, hanging out at the skate park, catching frogs in waterlily-studded streams using small plastic nets. The trees are in full leaf, the grass is long and lush. They go out on the lake on a paddleboard and Raph falls in. There is laughter and warmth is the golden sunshine.

Twins don’t always look alike, but viewers won’t take long to start wondering why Raph is so much smaller than his brother. “As I grew up I slowly noticed he was different,” Rémi says. That difference extends beyond the physical. As Rémi prepares to move on to a new stage of life, Raph will be left behind, his cognitive abilities never really surpassing those of the average child.

“He protects me, and that’s awesome,” he says of his brother. It’s hard to imagine his life being this good when Rémi is gone, and he’s smart enough to understand that. They play card games together before big windows which look onto the lake, in light which will soon fade. In a film which is primarily observational and incorporates just the briefest snippets of interview, the coming change goes unspoken, but both boys are aware of it. Nevertheless, Raphaël still suggests, as they snuggle down to sleep in a tent, that it would be fun to live together someday. This oasis of time is already receding. Soon it will be nothing but a mirage.