The Shadow Scarf is a 2018 short about a man who meets a woman at a bar and the secrets that are exposed.
The Shadow Scarf is by all accounts one of the best examples of modern film noir I have seen. I kind of wished that this was made in black and white to get the full nostalgic feel of those movies. Still this story includes most of the ingredients we see associated with that genre.
In this short we meet Jeffery (Clay von Carlowitz), who is waiting for his brother at a bar he works at. While waiting, he is greeted by the beautiful Aurora (Asta Paredes), whom he invites in. After they talk and flirt a little bit, Aurora soon reveals to Jeffery something about her past that will have big consequence on his future.
It should be clear that Asta Paredes is portraying our femme fatale and that Clay von Carlowitz is playing the helpless lackey, weakened by her charms. This element reminded me a lot of Double Indemnity, one of the best film noir movies ever made. Fred MacMurray‘s character is smitten so much with Barbara Stanwyck‘s that we don’t see what her end goals are, even though we should have. It’s the same with Aurora and Jeffrey. I won’t reveal what happens with them, but I will say that both actors did a very fine job in this. So much that this could have been expanded out to maybe another forty minutes. I would have been fine watching these characters on screen and have the story be a bit longer.
At times the sound can be a bit muffled at places and in a few sequences it almost looked like it was being shot with those camcorders from the 90’s. This is where having it being shot in black and white could have helped fixed some of those elements. In early movies the sound wasn’t always the best and there was also some issues with the picture before it was fully restored.
The Shadow Scarf is one of those shorts you feel like you know where it’s going until the rug is pulled out. You feel shocked and surprised at first, but when you watch it again, you know very well that the rug was being pulled out from you at the start.