Gabrielle and her parents have come all the way from France to visit Death Valley. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, she is trapped and all alone, having to deal with the tension between her mother and her father. In Trona Pinnacles, Mathilde Parquet invites their audience to tag along with that family trip and into its dysfunctional dynamic. Will the remoteness and magical scenery help them work through their issues?

The premise of the film is intriguing. Dysfunctional families have been depicted on-screen before, but in Trona Pinnacles, the location is of paramount importance to the storyline, hence the film’s title. As the short’s three central characters find themselves trapped in a car, in the middle of nowhere, before checking into a motel, in the middle of nowhere, no one seems to be enjoying themselves. Leaving its audience questioning whether the family evens want to be there, it’s the perfect recipe for a climax that will either bring healing to the family or blow everything up.

For anyone who’s experienced the tension of a family vacation, it will come as no surprise when Parquet reveals that the inspiration for the film came “ten years after a very special trip with my family”. Playing with that tension, while the film is mostly from Gabrielle’s perspective we do get to see what the other characters are also thinking. As the daughter’s irritation is brought to the screen in an incredibly effective way, the impressive sound design echoes her headspace and allows us to understand what annoys her, to the point where we start focusing on the same things and start being annoyed by them as well. It’s the tiniest things, but Parquet makes sure to emphasize those sounds to engage the audience and make the overall tension contagious through the screen.

With the importance of the location to the story, it becomes almost a character of its own. The images recreate the isolation of the characters, with the warm colors feeding into their simmering anger and allow us to feel the heat, not just from Death Valley. As day becomes night, the dark blue of twilight has a calming feel to it, pairing with the narrative to bringing a little healing to the chaos that has come before it. With the short’s edit and the score injecting the film with a thrilling rhythm and pace, they complement the narrative perfectly, guiding us through the growing tension, to the hopeful ending at its climax.

Trona Pinnacles hit the 2021 festival circuit, with notable stops at Montreal’s FNC, Regard, Melbourne, Animafest Zagreb, Clermont-Ferrand or Rotterdam to name a few. The film is part of the esteemed Miyu catalog and was released online via their YouTube channel.