Stories of Our Lives is an anthology of five short films with LGBT themes from the East African republic of Kenya. It was made by the Nairobi-based art and activist group The Nest Collective, many of whose members prefer to conceal their identities to avoid possible persecution under Kenya’s notoriously draconian anti-gay laws. The film is still banned in it some country. The five dramas are mostly personal and domestic inspired by true incidents. ASK ME NICELY Kate, a rebellious young high school girl, meets first-love Faith, a fellow student. They begin a secret relationship, until the school principal takes action to separate the two by suspending Kate from the school. Back at home, Kate impulsively has a sexual encounter with a boy in her neighborhood. Two weeks later, Kate and Faith have an awkward reunion leading to their separation. RUN After negotiating a business deal, Patrick stumbles upon a local gay bar with his homophobic best friend, Kama. Patrick later returns to the clu...
Dr. Prakan is a known surgeon working hard to save lives. But of late, he keeps seeing this mysterious man, who has introduced himself as a 'soul reaper', a guy from the 'other' world who is here to take people's soul away. So these 2 people work for two completely opposite reasons. One must collect the souls of the dead, the other must save lives before they reach that state. What Prawn doesn't understand is why he is the only one who sees him and why his heart beats so fast every time they are close. They start becoming friends slowly respecting each other's profession and also flirt. We are slowly told that their love story began when Prawn was a child and needed a heart transplant. The mysterious guy named Tuaphee was in same hospital fighting an illness. And after he dies, his heart was given to Prakan and this is why Prakan can see Tua as a soul reaper even when he isn’t making himself visible to humans. When truth reveals itself almost towards the end, akan finally realizes and accepts the harsh truth of live and the eventuality of death. Tuaphee has broken rules of the other world by being with another man and he gets punished of bit and disappears from Prawn's life for a few months only to return back and eventually bear the harsh truth of growing old together and eventuality of death. In between this, we also have coverage of competitive board rooms to the emergency room to the operating table, the doctors and nurses placed their hearts and medical licenses on the line. We have ample donor who has a crush on Prawn but sees him only as a friend. A new doctor joins the hospital and starts liking this other guy. So this was the one secondary couple. And then we have a straight couple of Prawn's cousin (also his competition of sorts) in love with another female doctor.
The story idea was novel to be honest. I like that the love story between Prakan and Tua was more than just about two men falling in love. It was a symbolic story about a man faced with death since childhood finally coming to terms with it. But. Then from a plot perspective there are so many loopholes. As an experienced surgeon, he should understand the harsh reality of death, so getting agonized after every case felt weird. Also, the "rules" of Reapers are silly and seem to be invented to suit plot points and don't really progress in a logical way. Also sometimes he could randomly be seen by others in a few scenes. We are told later that because Prawn has the reaper's heart, he is able to see him, but then why can he see the other soul reaper too? As actor The soul reaper does a good job, but I think the guy playing Prawn has things to learn. He had this dead pan droopy dead-pan look throughout the series which doesn't work. The amount of repetition also slowed the pacing. There were numerous repetitive scenes the straight doctor getting envious of the female talking to other men, or Prakan going back and forth with being friends with Tuaphee and then hating him, multiple pointless scenes of him getting drinks, etc. Even though I always feel that all secondary storylines digress the focus, but in this case, I wish the other gay doctor coupe had better chemistry and looked more realistic and I would loved to see more of them compared to the lead couple. For all that this is supposed to be a romance, I felt it was more like 90% angst and 10% romance. The romance really doesn't kick in until the last couple of episodes and by then its too little too late. Its sad that such a promising concept wasn't given the proper resources to really shine because I think it could have been spectacular, but the overwhelming negative aspects make it mediocre at best. (5.5/10)
Comments
I was excited seeing the leads again from grey rainbow.
If today, you asked me story of any of shows from 1-2 years ago, even if I rated them high; I would barely remember a thing. ON a brighter side, it's easier to forget all the nonsense I see and not retain in my head. lol