Enemy Alien: Italian American  – By David A. Taylor – Short Film Review

I think the thing that makes cinema beautiful is seeing different points of view. David Taylor dives into the world of what it is like for an immigrant family to come to America from the ground up.

Being born in America, it is tough sometimes to understand what people from different countries go through to simply live a safe beautiful life; simply freedom. But the sadder part is many people don’t take the time to truly step into each other’s shoes. In “Enemy Alien-Italian American” you truly step into the life of an immigrant family. This is an animated short that uses simple pictures to illustrate the Italian families transition into life in America.

I love the simplicity of the illustrations. It really allowed me to focus on the meat of the story. The very present theme of “Societal Oppression” is very strong in this piece. This is usually something really hard to tackle but Taylor does it in a masterful way. I also saw a lot of use of symbolism in this piece. Specifically, the color choice. A little bit on the choice of color. Throughout the entire film the color yellow is dominant throughout the entire piece.

Even in the moments where the family is dealing with societal oppression the color yellow is very dominant. Seeing this color being present, it gave me a sense of hope for the family. I don’t think this color choice was a mistake by any means.  I always love when a filmmaker merges both truth and their artistic flair into a piece.

I can tell that this story is very near and dear to Taylor’s heart because of the way it is executed. Something else I love about it is the pacing is very smooth. Every scene is carefully planned and timed where the audience has the time to take in each individual set of text. Which makes the story smooth and peaceful.

I think everyone should witness this story, because many are ignorant to what people have to go through to simply live! I would be interested to see this animated short transformed into a feature that is more realized, because I think it would be phenomenal at a feature length and of course educational!

Thank you David Taylor for introducing this and being willing to tell a story that needed to be told!

We very much look forward to seeing where David Taylor goes next!