Powerful Metaphors to Grok from SIFF International Films
Every Spring an amazing event happens: the Seattle International Film Festival. This year it ran May 9-19, while online screenings of selected films continue through May 27th. Over the years, the festival has become a favorite artistic experience of mine; not only because it’s an opportunity to see diverse films from around the world, but it also allows me to encounter filmmaking that happens outside the standard crayon-box of Hollywood. One artistic choice that seems to occur more often in foreign films is an extended use of metaphor. I especially appreciate the filmmakers who move beyond using visual symbology to enhance their storytelling and deeply embed metaphor into their film’s narrative structure itself.
There were two examples this year that strongly demonstrated the power of metaphor that stood out for me: The Vanishing Soldier from Israel and Tiger Stripes from Malaysia. These films could not be more different storywise; however, the filmmakers share a desire to tell their stories on deeper, metaphoric levels that kept me thinking far after leaving the theater.
In The Vanishing Soldier (Dani Rosenberg, Director), we follow a day in the life of 18-year-old Shlomi, an Israeli soldier who goes AWOL from his unit during an incursion into Gaza. This was actually released in 2023 before the present crisis in Gaza—but it couldn’t feel more timely. The film follows Shlomi’s impulsive desire to flee his wartime duties as a soldier and, literally, go home to see his girlfriend. What he doesn’t take into account is how his disappearance from the front will cause a disastrous ripple effect across the whole of Israel and Gaza. His totally understandable teenage desire to have a normal life morphs into a cause-and-effect parable of how Israel itself is caught up in a never-ending conflict of its own making. I came away from the film thinking what a hot mess Shlomi was...but as the film careened to its climax I began to see that Shlomi was Israel. As he races around the streets of Tel Aviv on a stolen bicycle, his army-issue rifle carelessly slung over his back, Shlomi causes mayhem and confusion wherever he goes, not unlike his country as it irresponsibly tries to "fix things” while wreaking havoc along its destructively careless way.
Still image from The Vanishing Soldier / From Intramovies
Tiger Stripes (directed by Amanda Nell Eu, winner of the “Best Feature Prize” at the 2023 Cannes Critics’ Week) follows the journey of 12-year-old Zaffan as she navigates early puberty ahead of her classmates. The film takes place in a small Malaysian village where a group of rambunctious adolescent girls, led by the charismatic Zaffan, are pushing against the stifling control of their teachers, and in a wider sense, their entire society. The opening and closing images of the film beautifully (and metaphorically) encapsulate Zaffan’s journey into self-ownership within a repressive and patriarchal society: the opening shot is a TikTok-esque video of Zaffan exuberantly dancing within the confines of her traditional Muslim attire, complete with hijab; the closing shot is her dancing in a lush jungle, the hijab is gone, and her long hair is flying in an almost feral abandonment. We see her expression is that of rapturous joy and liberation.
The central metaphor in Tiger Stripes is that of transformation; for Zaffan, the onset of puberty triggers her gradual transformation into a tiger-like creature that takes control of its own life and fights against the sexist norms imposed by societal norms.
Still image from Tiger Stripes / SIFF
SIFF Programer, SuJ’n Chon, put it this way in the description:
The film serves as a sharp allegory for society's treatment of girls entering womanhood, showcasing Eu's distinct originality as a first-time filmmaker while echoing more familiar stories of body transformations. It offers a more critical perspective than Pixar's Turning Red, a deeper earnestness than Teen Wolf, and a more fantastical take on Cronenberg’s body horror work.
