Magnetic: Short Film, Essay Example

The short film “Magnetic” by F.C. Rabbath is a tale concerning the innermost attractions of the human heart.  This is a force beyond what a person can normally see.  The story is about a boy who wants to be noticed by a certain girl with blonde hair.  When he is young, he gives her a present, a small magnet, though she rejects him.  One of the girl’s friends, who has brunette hair then tries to comfort him, but he runs away.  The story flashes forward to when he is older.  The blonde girl still doesn’t notice him as he tries to smile at her awkwardly, but he seems to have come up with a plan.  He has come up with some sort of idea, and goes to a workshop with various types of equipment.  He builds a bracelet that somehow consists of some type of magnets, and, going out into public, realizes that it can attract people to him.  When he excitedly confronts his crush, the girl finally notices him and even smiles and waves in his direction.  However, as he gets closer the bracelet repels instead of attracting her.  Finally giving up, he throws the bracelet down in frustration.  A figure approaches and picks up the bracelet.  It is the brunette haired girl that tried to comfort him when he was younger, and she is able to slip the bracelet on his wrist without any trouble.The film ends with the two gazing at one another.

The attraction the boy had to the girl was only superficial because it only went one way and didn’t go very deep.  The girl never cared about him, which is why the wristband only propelled her away. At the beginning, she turned down his present, while the other girl was kind enough to pick it up and return it to him.  This shows that while the girl that tried to comfort him cared about him, the other girl didn’t care about him at all.  Later in the story, the girl blonde haired girl is pushed away by the bracelet, I believe that this was attempting to show that there was no real attraction between the two of them, while the brunette haired girl was able to pick up the bracelet and return it without being rejected, which showed that they had some type of deeper attraction to one another.  However, it could also mean that the bracelet wasn’t doing what it was supposed to.  Perhaps, although it originally worked, it began to malfunction because he was trying to use it for the wrong reasons.  This would somewhat change the notion that the story is about the deeper attractions between people.  Instead, it would be more about not taking advantage of other people. Furthermore, the girl who picks up the bracelet in the end would have been able to be around it because the boy was no longer trying to use it to get what he wanted in an unscrupulous way.  This would mean the two don’t have a deep connection and would give the film a very different meaning.The issue with this film is that it is based on an abstract notion and doesn’t allow for the idea of free will.  Some believe that there is no such thing as love.  The film relies on the notion that there can be a deeper connection between people that goes beyond what they may believe that they want.  In the case of the boy’s attraction to the blonde haired girl, the fact that the bracelet pushed her away may have simply meant that he needed to try harder.  Furthermore, this would mean that people have no choice in the matter of who they are attracted to, which some might not agree with.

Works Cited

Magnetic (2012). Dir. F.C. Rabbath. F.C. Rabbath Creations. www.fcrabbathcreations.com.May 2014.